Effect of malnutrition and subsequent rehabilitation on the development of mouse brain myelin

Malnutrition in mice from birth resulted in myelin of brain having higher than normal molar proportions of cholesterol and phospholipids relative to a molar unit of cerebroside + sulphatide. This was found at all ages between 20 and 60 days, and the molar ratio of these lipids in older animals was comparable to that in the younger controls. The phospholipid and the ganglioside patterns were also immature for age. The phospholipid composition was characterized by lower molar proportions of ethanolamine phosphoglyceride (EPG) and sphingomyelin (SPh) and higher proportion of choline phosphoglyceride (CPG), and the ganglioside pattern was characterized by higher molar proportions of the disialogangliosides GD1a and GD1b and markedly lower proportion of the monosialoganglioside GM1. Malnutrition imposed from 30 days of age did not affect the contents of the major lipids (and so their molar ratio), but within the phospholipids there was a small but significant deficit of SPh, which was compensated by a higher content of CPG. The ganglioside pattern was as if the animals were malnourished from birth. Nutritional rehabilitation up to 60 days of age subsequent to malnutrition for the first 30 days fully corrected the ganglioside pattern, but not the molar ratio, of the major lipids (because of persistent deficit in cerebroside + sulphatide) and the composition of the phospholipids (because of small but significant deficit of SPh). The results indicate that malnutrition instituted at any time during the entire programme of myelination can affect one or other aspect of myelin development, and nutritional rehabilitation of animals malnourished in early life cannot fully correct this developmental gap.