Artificial rearing of infant mice leads to n-3 fatty acid deficiency in cardiac, neural and peripheral tissues.
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% alpha-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.
Hussein
Nahed
N
Faculty of Specific Education, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.
Fedorova
Irina
I
Moriguchi
Toru
T
Hamazaki
Kei
K
Kim
Hee-Yong
HY
Hoshiba
Junji
J
Salem
Norman
N
D000821:Animal Feed / Q000009:adverse effects; D000822:Animal Husbandry / Q000379:methods; D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn; D001835:Body Weight; D003677:Deficiency Diseases / Q000209:etiology* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D015525:Fatty Acids, Omega-3 / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D005526:Food, Formulated / Q000009:adverse effects*; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008813:Mice, Inbred ICR; D009206:Myocardium / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D009420:Nervous System / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D009929:Organ Size; D014018:Tissue Distribution
D015525:Fatty Acids, Omega-3