Effects of maternal high-fat diet on gene expression of mature oocytes and st.11 embryos in medaka (Oryzias latipes). Oryzias latipes strain:d-rR

Maternal nutritional status can affect development and metabolic phenotypes of their progenies in animals. Although the effects of maternal diet are thought to be mediated mainly by the changes inside oocytes such as organelles, maternal RNAs, and metabolites, to what extent each factor contributes to offspring phenotypes remains uncertain. Using medaka as an oviparous vertebrate model, here we examined whether maternal high-fat diet (HFD) feeding affects offspring development, and what kind of changes occur in the contents of mature eggs. We found that maternal HFD triggers a higher propensity for embryonic deformities of offspring, accompanied by downregulation of transcription- and translation-related genes and zygotic transcripts at blastula stage. In addition, transcriptomic analysis of mature eggs showed moderate upregulation of endoplasmic reticulum stress-related genes and downregulation of some genes involved in oocyte maturation.