Maternal nutritional protein deficiency reduces nephron endowment at birth via disruption of nephron progenitor trajectory and branching morphogenesis

Nephron number in the mouse kidney is lowered when maternal protein intake is reduced to 6-8% down from 20% (normal diet). We used single cell sequencing to study the transcriptional response to maternal low protein diet in the mouse embryonic kidney at days E14.5 and P0 (birth). Females were fed a low protein diet for 2 weeks prior to conception, through to birth. Kidneys were dissected from offspring at E14.5 and at P0 and processed for single cell (E14.5) or single nuclear (P0) RNA sequencing.