Depot-dependent effects of maternal nutrient restriction on baboon fetal preadipocyte global gene profiles

Suboptimal intrauterine nutrition predisposes the fetus to central obesity and metabolic syndrome in adult life, suggesting nutritional programming of the fat distribution. However, the underlying mechanisms are not elucidated. We hypothesized that prenatal nutritional deprivation leads to stimulation of adipogenesis, as an adaptive mechanism, in a depot-dependent manner. The induction of adipogenesis is most enhanced in the subcutaneous lower-body depots, followed by the subcutaneous upper-body and visceral adipose tissue depots. Stimulation of adipogenesis may lead to an early consumption of the stem cell pool, and thus, may impair adipose tissue expandability postnatally, which may lead to differences in regional adipose tissue growth. We tested this hypothesis by analyzing global gene expression to identify expression patterns in subcutaneous abdominal, subcutaneous femoral, and omental adipose depots of baboon fetuses that have been altered by nutritional maternal deprivation. Adipose tissue was collected from baboon fetuses at 165 dG from mothers fed control or 30% nutrient-restricted diets (three females and one male in each group). 24 samples, each consisted of pooled total RNA from triplicate wells (6-well plate).