Parental dietary fat intake alters offspring microbiome and immunity
The samples are surgically/sterilely resected stool from the cecum of 5-7 week old pups. The pups came from breeders that were exposed to different diets. The breeders were placed on the diets one day before placement in breeding cages and remained on the diets throughout the study. All pups from all breeders were weaned onto the low fat control diet. The samples were from pups that thus, were exposed to these diets in utero and during nursing. Therefore, the variable under investigation in the study involving these cecal content samples was the dietary exposure from the breeders/parents during gestation and lactation.  The omega-6 group (O6) came from pups who''s breeding parents were fed a diet with 40% kcal from fat, most of which from omega-6.  The Western Diet (WD) came form pups who''s breeding parents were fed a diet with 40% kcal from fat, much from saturated fat with an over-representation of omega-6.  The Low Fat (LF) groups came from pups who''s parents were fed a diet with 10% kcal from fat and a healthy balance of omega-3 to omega-6.  For co-housed mice (CoH) pups from LF or WD breeders were weaned into the same cage, all fed the low fat control diet for 4 weeks, then the samples were obtained in an identical fashion.