Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2021, Vol. 52 ›› Issue (7): 1891-1902.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2021.07.012

• ANIMAL BIOTECHNOLOGY AND REPRODUCTION • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effects of Dietary Fish Oil on Estrous Cycles and Body Heat Production in Mice Fed High-fat Diets

YANG Xiaohua, LIU Fangfang, ZHANG Fenglin, YI Xin, CHEN Lin, SHU Gang, WANG Lina, ZHU Xiaotong, GAO Ping, JIANG Qingyan, WANG Songbo*   

  1. Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition Control, College of Animal Science, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
  • Received:2021-02-26 Online:2021-07-23 Published:2021-07-23

Abstract: This study aimed to investigate the effects of dietary fish oil on estrous cycles and body heat production of mice fed high-fat diets (HFD). Thirty-six C57BL/6 J female mice at 4-week-old were randomly divided into 3 groups (n=12):control group, HFD group and HFD + fish oil group, respectively. The control group was fed with a standard rodent chow diet (AIN-93G). The HFD group and HFD + fish oil group were fed HFD (60% energy from fat) without or with 5% fish oil (equally replace lard energy), respectively. During the trial, the mice were used for various examinations, including body composition (12-week-old), body energy metabolism (16-week-old), brown adipose tissue(BAT) temperature (18-week-old), body core temperature (rectum temperature, 18-week-old) and estrous cycles (20-week-old). At the end of the experiment, the blood sample was collected from eye sockets, and the serum was isolated for examination of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and estradiol (E2). In addition, the subcutaneous fat, abdominal fat and interscapular BAT were collected, weighed and used for detection of the protein expression of genes related to thermogenic program in adipose tissues (UCP1, Cyto C) by Western blot, and the mRNA expression of genes related to thermogenic program in brown adipose tissues (UCP1, PRDM16, PGC1α, Cidea, Elovl3) by real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR. The results showed that HFD induced a significant increase in body fat content (12-week-old), and subcutaneous fat and abdominal fat mass (21-week-old) compared with the control diet (P<0.05). Notably, the HFD-induced increase of fat content was significantly reduced by fish oil supplementation (P<0.05). In addition, HFD led irregular estrous cycles, with prolonged cycle duration and shortened estrus period, and decreased the level of FSH and E2 in serum (P<0.05). However, the HFD-induced estrous cycle irregularity of mice was alleviated by fish oil supplementation and the level of FSH and E2 in serum was increased (P<0.05). Meanwhile, fish oil supplementation increased BAT activation/thermogenesis and promoted white adipose tissue(WAT) browning in HFD-fed mice, with enhanced the expression of thermogenic marker genes in interscapular brown adipose tissue (iBAT) and inguinal white adipose tissue (iWAT) (P<0.05). These findings suggest that dietary fish oil can alleviate HFD-induced estrous cycle irregularity, possibly associate with enhanced body thermogenesis via BAT activation and WAT browning.

Key words: fish oil, estrous cycle, BAT thermogenesis, WAT browning, mouse

CLC Number: