High-Salt Diet Causes Defective Oocyte Maturation and Embryonic Development to Impair Female Fertility in Mice

Maternal exposure to polystyrene nanoplastics induces sex-specific kidney injury in offspring

Maternal exposure to polystyrene nanoplastics (PS-NPs) during pregnancy and lactation has been linked to adverse effects on offspring kidney development, with sex-specific outcomes. This study investigated the impact of maternal PS-NPs exposure on kidney weight, histology, transcriptomics, and functional pathways in offspring mice. Offspring exposed to PS-NPs exhibited significantly lower body weight (P < 0.05) and an increased kidney-to-body weight ratio (P < 0.05), particularly in males. Histological analysis revealed a reduction in glomerular number in PS-NP-treated groups. Transcriptome profiling identified 758 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in male and 101 DEGs in female offspring, with males showing a more pronounced alteration in gene expression. KEGG pathway enrichment highlighted disruptions in immune response, cell cycle regulation, and metabolism, with males exhibiting more extensive pathway changes than females. Additionally, PS-NPs exposure increased renal fibrosis (P < 0.05), with molecular analyses confirming sex-specific gene expression patterns linked to fibrosis and apoptosis. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed enhanced macrophage infiltration and cleaved caspase-3 expression, indicating heightened immune and apoptotic responses in males. Further investigation identified small molecules BI-D1870 and Resatorvid as potential therapeutic agents, reducing fibrosis, inflammation, and apoptosis in male and female offspring, respectively. These findings demonstrate that maternal PS-NPs exposure induces sex-specific kidney injury in offspring, disrupting key biological processes and pathways. The study underscores the need for targeted therapeutic interventions to mitigate these effects and highlights potential compounds for future treatment.

Prenatal high-sucrose diet affects pulmonary artery contractile functions via MT receptors

A high sucrose diet during pregnancy may generate profound effects on vascular diseases in offspring later in life. Pulmonary artery (PA) functions is closely related to pulmonary hypertension, but whether and how prenatal high-sucrose diet (HS) affect pulmonary vasoreactivity in adult offspring remains unknown. We investigated the alterations of PA reactivity in postnatal offspring exposed to prenatal HS. Pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats were fed either a tap water or 20 % high sucrose solution throughout pregnancy. Pulmonary arteries from adult offspring were isolated and tested for all experiments. Prenatal HS increased vascular wall thickness, resulted in swollen mitochondria, and altered myofilament distribution in vascular smooth muscle layers of PA. Notably, the offspring's PAs from HS group showed increased vasoconstriction, but reduced PKC function and expression, suggesting that the dysfunction was not primary linked to PKC signals. RNA-Seq analysis of PA revealed that the MT1R and MT2AR genes were significantly increased in the HS group, but their protein levels decreased. This suggests that MT receptors, rather than PKC signaling, are the key factors to influencing vascular contraction of PAs exposure to prenatal HS.