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Artificial Rearing of Infant Mice Leads to n-3 Fatty Acid Deficiency in Cardiac, Neural and Peripheral Tissues

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Lipids

Abstract

The ability to control the fatty acid content of the diet during early development is a crucial requirement for a one-generation model of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA; 22:6n3) deficiency. A hand feeding method using artificial rearing (AR) together with sterile, artificial milk was employed for feeding mice from postnatal day 2–15. The pups were fed an n-3 fatty acid adequate (3% α-linolenic acid (LNA; 18:3n3) + 1% 22:6n3) or a deficient diet (0.06% 18:3n3) with linoleic acid (LA; 18:2n6) as the only dietary source of essential fatty acids by AR along with a dam-reared control group (3.1% 18:3n3). The results indicate that restriction of n-3 fatty acid intake during postnatal development leads to markedly lower levels of brain, retinal, liver, plasma and heart 22:6n3 at 20 weeks of age with replacement by docosapentaenoic acid (DPAn6; 22:5n6), arachidonic acid (ARA; 20:4n6) and docosatetraenoic acid (DTA; 22:4n6). A detailed analysis of phospholipid classes of heart tissue indicated that phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylcholine and cardiolipin were the major repositories of 22:6n3, reaching 40, 29 and 15%, respectively. A novel heart cardiolipin species containing four 22:6n3 moieties is described. This is the first report of the application of artificially rearing to mouse pup nutrition; this technique will facilitate dietary studies of knockout animals as well as the study of essential fatty acid (EFA) functions in the cardiovascular, neural and other organ systems.

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Abbreviations

AR:

Artificial rearing

n-3 Adq:

n-3 Fatty acid adequate group

n-3 Def:

n-3 Fatty acid deficient group

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Specific Education, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

    Nahed Hussein

  2. Laboratory of Membrane Biochemistry and Biophysics, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health, 5625 Fishers Lane, Room 3N-07, Bethesda, MD, 20892-9410, USA

    Irina Fedorova, Toru Moriguchi & Norman Salem Jr.

  3. Laboratory of Molecular Signaling, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health, 5625 Fishers Lane, Room 3N-07, Bethesda, MD, 20892-9410, USA

    Kei Hamazaki & Hee-Yong Kim

  4. Department of Animal Resources, Advanced Science Research Center, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan

    Junji Hoshiba

  5. Martek Biosciences Corp., 6480 Dobbin Road, Columbia, MD, 21045, USA

    Norman Salem Jr.

Authors
  1. Nahed Hussein
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  2. Irina Fedorova
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  3. Toru Moriguchi
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  4. Kei Hamazaki
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  5. Hee-Yong Kim
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  6. Junji Hoshiba
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  7. Norman Salem Jr.
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Correspondence to Norman Salem Jr..

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Hussein, N., Fedorova, I., Moriguchi, T. et al. Artificial Rearing of Infant Mice Leads to n-3 Fatty Acid Deficiency in Cardiac, Neural and Peripheral Tissues. Lipids 44, 685–702 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11745-009-3318-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11745-009-3318-2

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