What mothers eat might change their children’s metabolic regulation

Dr Sophie Walker

21 September 2018

The effect of diet is of obvious importance throughout life; a well-balanced diet can help mitigate against a wide range of potential issues. What’s less well understood, however, is how changes in the diet of mothers during pregnancy can change how their offspring metabolise nutrients and whether it renders them more prone to obesity. Dr Sophie Walker used an award from Elizabeth Blackwell Institute to study epigenetic changes in mice.

Thanks to the Clinical Primer Scheme Dr Walker investigated this phenomenon by looking at the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) of the hypothalamus in mice. The PVN is known to be highly susceptible to stressors, and (amongst many other functions) regulates appetite and plays a role in the regulation of glucose.

Mice were fed wither a normal or a high fat diet during pregnancy, and the PVN of their offspring were microdissected. The samples were subjected to chromatin immunoprecipitation, which can identify histone modifications within the genome. The samples were sent to an external provider for high-throughput sequencing, and the results analysed.

Preliminary findings indicate that there were significantly more unregulated PVN pathways unregulated in female offspring of the high-fat diet mice than in the male offspring. Analysis continues, but this intriguing preliminary finding raises some fascinating questions.

Previously based in Royal Glamorgan Hospital, Pontyclun,as a Foundation Trainee Dr Walker decided to pursue a career in academic medicine while completing her intercalated BSc in Immunology. Of her past experience, she said: “I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the lab. I was able to develop a new set of skills as well as work in a completely different multidisciplinary environment, which I found intellectually challenging and very rewarding."

Now she’s completed the Programme, Dr Walkeris currently completing her PhD at Queen Mary University of London, investigating the phenomenon of myocardial injury after non-cardaic surgery.

“The Clinical Primer Scheme has given me the opportunity to develop my basic science research skills and collaborative working style, as well as manage grant budgets and equipment. I have learnt the basics of ChIP and DNA library generation as well as how to analyse the bioinformatics data form next generation sequencing The lab techniques and data analysis I developed during my Primer have been extremely useful throughout my PhD.”