Taurine attenuates liver autophagy and injury of offspring in gestational diabetic mellitus rats

• Published in: Life sciences (1973) 2020-09, Vol.257, p.117889-117889, Article 117889
• Main Authors: Luo, Ying, Tian, Yue, Zhao, Chunrong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Apoptosis; Autophagy; Bax protein; Damage prevention; Diabetes mellitus; Edema; Gestational diabetes mellitus; Hepatocytes; High fat diet; Insulin; Insulin resistance; Intellectual disabilities; Liver; Liver autophagy injury; Mental disorders; Metabolism; Offspring; Phagocytosis; Phagosomes; Protein expression; Proteins; Schizophrenia; Staining; Streptozocin; Taurine; Ultrastructure
• ISSN: 0024-3205; 1879-0631
• DOI: 10.1016/j.lfs.2020.117889

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) has many adverse effects on offspring, such as abnormal glycolipid metabolism, obesity, insulin resistance, mental retardation, schizophrenia and so on. We established a GDM rat model by injecting 1% streptozotocin associated with a high-fat diet one week before pregnancy, and offspring rats were sacrificed at 8 weeks of age to obtain liver tissue for study. We used hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining to observe liver morphological changes, Tunel staining for hepatocyte apoptosis, transmission electron microscope for liver ultrastructure, and western blot for protein expression in liver tissue. Compared with normal offspring rats, hepatocytes of GDM offspring rats showed obvious edema, liver organ index increased, and hepatocyte apoptosis and autophagosome in the liver were significantly increased; Bax, cleaved-caspase3/caspase3, LCII, Beclin 1, P-IKBα/IKBα and P-p65/p6 protein expression in the liver were significantly increased; Bcl2, p62 and PPARγ protein expression in the liver were significantly decreased. Tau prevented the GDM-related effects in the offspring: Tau decreased hepatocyte edema (or even disappears), liver organ index, hepatocyte apoptosis and the number of autophagosomes in the liver. In addition, Tau also decreased Bax, cleaved-caspase3/caspase3, LCII, Beclin 1, P-IKBα/IKBα and P-p65/p6 protein expression, and increased Bcl2, p62 and PPARγ protein expression in the liver of GDM offspring rats. Taurine should be considered as a potential gestational nutritional supplement to prevent liver damage in GDM offspring.