Blood lipid level, liver fat content and expression changes of fat-specific protein 27 in aged intrauterine growth restriction rats

LEI Xiaoping; ZOU Lile; DONG Wenbin; KANG Lan; ZHAO Shuai; LUO Mei

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1002-266X.2016.35.010

Abstract：Objective To observe the blood lipid level, liver fat content and the expression changes of fat-specific protein 27 ( Fsp27) in the aged intrauterine growth restriction ( IUGR) rats.Methods A total of 8 newborn IUGR rats ( IUGR group) and 8 newborn appropriate-for-gestational-age ( AGA) rats ( AGA group) were breastfed by their mothers and then were fed on normal diet after weaning until the age of 12 months.The morphology of hepatocyte was observed un-der optical microscopes.We detected the levels of LDL-C, TC, FFA, HDL-C and TG in the plasma as well as TC and TG in the liver tissues by enzymatic method.We also detected the mRNA and protein expression of Fsp27 in the liver tissues by RT-PCR and Western-blotting, respectively.Results In the plasma of IUGR group and AGA group, the serum TC was re-spectively (0.57 ±0.14) and (0.32 ±0.15) mmol/gprot, LDL-C was respectively (7.16 ±1.08) and (5.32 ±0.88) mmol/L, HDL-C was respectively (3.33 ±0.54) and (4.47 ±0.71) mmol/L, TG was respectively (2.21 ±0.23) and (1.66 ±0.15) mmol/L, FFA was respectively (1.46 ±0.25) and (1.17 ±0.21) mmol/L, and significant difference was found between these two groups (all P<0.01).At the age of 12 months, the morphology and size of hepatocyte was nor-mal and the cytoplasm was homogeneous in AGA rats.The hepatocyte cytoplasm of AGA rats had rare lipid droplets and vacuoles, while the IUGR rats had large unequal-sized lipid drops in cytoplasm.In the liver tissues of IUGR group and AGA group, TC was respectively (1.41 ±0.37) and (1.03 ±0.30) mmol/gprot, TG was respectively 2.38 ±0.39 and 1.81 ±0.54, and significant difference was found between these two groups (all P<0.05).In addition, the mRNA ex-pression of Fsp27 (4.35 ±1.12) in the IUGR group was significantly higher than that (2.37 ±0.75) of the AGA group as well as the protein expression [(1.19 ±0.23) vs (0.69 ±0.16)] (all P<0.01).Conclusion Compared with the AGA rats, the aged IUGR rats have higher levels of TC, LDL-C, TG and FFA in blood lipids, lower level of HDL-C and higher liver fat content, which may be associated with the higher expression of Fsp27 in liver tissues.