Influence of generational obesity on the visceral adipose proteome

Obesity is a global health concern affecting over 650 million adults with a major contributor being an increased consumption of a high-fat diet. Maternal obesity often results in an increased risk of offspring developing obesity. In this study, we examined the effect of diet on visceral adipose in a pre-clinical model of generational diet-induced obesity that included maternal cohorts of C57BL/6 mice fed either a control diet (10% fat) or a high-fat diet (45% fat) and the resulting female offspring fed either diet. Using bottom-up proteomics on omental adipose tissue, differential protein expression was determined with the greatest difference resulting from the generational obese cohort. Differentially expressed proteins were involved in pathways related to cancer, inflammatory disease and immune response. Taken together, the results of this study provide molecular-level insight that will enable the development of more targeted, modifiable interventions that could be implemented pre-, during and post-pregnancy.