Gestational taurine supplementation of mice: effect on offspring gene expression in liver and skeletal muscle. Mus musculus

Taurine is known to be important for fetal well being and to be able to prevent effects of a low birthweight phenotype when supplemented to pregnant dams. We hypothesized that gestational taurine supplementation would affect gene expression level in 4w offspring liver and skeletal muscle. Overall design: Pregnant mouse dams were subjected to different diet schemes from day 1 of pregnancy until birth. Pups were killed at 4 weeks of age and liver and quadriceps skeletal muscle taken out and frozen at -80C until analysis. Diet schemes: Normal Protein (20% casein; NP), Normal Protein + taurine (1% taurine supplementation in water ad libitum; NP+tau). The liver and muscle samples were normalized separately.