Effects of early postnatal overnutrition on the hypothalamic DNA methylation pattern. Mus musculus

Investigate the persistent effects of early postnatal overnutrition on the developmental establishment of the DNA methylation in the mouse hypothalamus. Overall design: Early postnatal overnutrition was induced in mice by reducing the litter size from normally 9 (C) to 4 (SL) pups per litter. Hypothalami were collected from both C and SL mice at the age of postnatal day 180 (P180). Genome-wide DNA methylation difference between SL and C were detected by MSAM. Equal amount of genomic DNA from 5 hypothalami of the same group were pooled as one MSAM sample. Two pooled DNA samples for each group were used for comparison that meant total 10 hypothalami for each group. 500ng pooled DNA was serially digested with SmaI and XmaI followed by adaptor ligation and PCR amplification. Two cohybridizations were performed to compare DNA methylation between SL and C hypothalami, with day swap.