Figure 1.
Blood pressure at 4 weeks of age in offspring.
A) rats fed low protein diet throughout pregnancy without (LP) or with metyrapone over days 0–14 gestation (LPM), and B) rats treated with dexamethasone over days 15–22 gestation. Data are shown as mean ± SEM for 8 observations per group. Two way ANOVA indicated that in the metyrapone experiment blood pressure was influenced by maternal treatment (p = 0.006), but there was no effect of sex. In the dexamethasone study, blood pressure was influenced by dexamethasone treatment (P<0.001) and by the interaction of sex and treatment (p = 0.049). All measurements were corrected for body weight.
Table 1.
Maternal weight gain, food intake and reproductive outcomes following protein restriction and metyrapone administration over d0–14 gestation.
Figure 2.
Effect of Metyrapone on Agtr1b expression and DNA methylation.
(A) Gene expression in animals at 1 week of age whose mothers received control (C) or low protein diets during pregnancy with vehicle alone (LP) or metyrapone (LPM) for the first fourteen days of pregnancy. Results are expressed relative to the 18S ribosomal RNA and are expressed as the mean ± SEM. The number of adrenals studied in each group is shown below each column. * p<0.05; *** p<0.005 (B) Methylation of the three most proximal CpG sites in the Agtr1b promoter in the adrenal at 1 week of age. Each empty circle represents an unmethylated CpG site, while filled circles represent methylated sites. Each column represents a single adrenal, the sex of which is shown above the column. Each horizontal group of three circles indicates a single sequenced clone. Differences between groups are calculated by Chi squared. * p<0.05; ** p<0.01; *** p<0.005.
Figure 3.
Effect of Dexamethasone on Agtr1b expression and DNA methylation.
(A) Expression of the Agtr1b at one week of age in animals whose mothers received control (C) or dexamethasone during the last 7 days of pregnancy. Results are expressed relative to the 18S ribosomal RNA and are expressed as the mean + SEM. The number of adrenals in each group are shown on the columns. There were no statistically significant differences. (B) Methylation of the three most proximal CpG sites in the Agtr1b promoter in the adrenal at 1 week of age. Each empty circle represents an unmethylated CpG site, while filled circles represent methylated sites. Each column represents a single adrenal, the sex of which is shown above the column. Each horizontal group of three circles indicates a single sequenced clone. The differences between the two groups were not statistically significant.
Table 2.
Maternal weight gain, food intake and reproductive outcomes following dexamethasone administration over d15–22 gestation.