Leucine nutritional supplementation effects on placental activity of Walker 256 tumour bearing pregnancy rats in time-course

Author(s)

Carla de Moraes Salgado

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Biologia
• Defense date: 2021-09-20

Examining board members

Maria Cristina Cintra Gomes Marcondes; Estela Maris Andrade Forell Bevilacqua; Maria Laura Costa do Nascimento

• Advisor: Maria Cristina Cintra Gomes Marcondes; Laís Rosa Viana

Abstract

Cancer during pregnancy is increasing and poses challenges to the medical team. The tumour evolution could lead to alterations in maternal metabolism, impaired placental function, and compromise foetal growth. In this context, a leucine-rich diet could modulates maternal metabolism and reduce damage to the placenta. Thus, in this study, we investigated whether the leucine-rich diet modulated maternal metabolic changes caused by tumour growth and how ma-ternal modulation reflected placental function and foetal growth. Pregnant Wistar rats were dis-tributed into four experimental groups (n=10): two groups fed a control diet – Control (C) and Tumour (W); two groups fed a diet rich in leucine, Leucine (L) and Tumour Leucine (LW). The tumour implant occurred on the 2nd day of pregnancy in W and LW groups. The euthanasia occurred on different days of pregnancy (12th, 16th, 19th, and 21st days). Maternal serum, placen-tas and foetuses were collected for morphometric, metabolomic and rt-PCR analyses. The leu-cine-rich diet modulated the morphometric parameters of the LW group, preserving the maternal body weight, foetal weight, and placental area in a pregnancy time-course. However, the tu-mour-induced maternal serum metabolites alterations were not modulated by the leucine-rich diet. Although no changes happened in placental metabolites at 12 days, the leucine-rich diet decreased lactate, phenylalanine, tyrosine, uracil, tryptophan, isoleucine, and valine in LW foe-tuses. On the 16th day, the changed placental metabolites, mainly related to energy metabolism, showed a reduction in the LW group's placental glycine, leucine, and valine. However, these changes did not affect the 16-day-old foetuses. On the 19th day of pregnancy, the tumour in-creased foetal NADP+, AMP and ADP, which were not modulated by a leucine-rich diet. In conclusion, the morphometric parameters showed positive results due to leucine supplementa-tion. Regarding the metabolic profile, leucine-rich diet modulated placental creatine and foetal amino acids at 12 days of pregnancy; modulated some placental amino acids at 16 days of preg-nancy but did not modulate altered placental energy metabolism due to tumour growth. At the end of pregnancy, leucine-rich diet modulated did not modulate foetal metabolites but affected modulating some placental amino acids and also modulated the placental expression of some genes of Nodal pathway and preserved Tpbpa gene expression in LW group (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 18/20637-7 - Evaluation of the effects of nutritional supplementation with leucine on the placental activity of Walker 256 tumour-bearing rats during pregnancy evolution
• Grantee: Carla de Moraes Salgado
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master