Journal of Nutrition & Food Sciences
Open Access

Abstract

Effects of Prenatal and Postnatal Dietary Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids on Retinal Fatty Acid Composition and Gene Expression in Adult Rat

T. Mrudula, Ghafoorunissa, N. Saravanan and G. Bhanuprakash Reddy

Long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) are the major determinants of the structure and function of retina, any impairment in their maternal and dietary supply might result in the defective retinal development, structure and function. The present study is aimed to investigate the effects of different pre- and postnatal diet varying only in their dietary n-6 and n-3 fatty acid content but not in the total energy on the molecular environment of retina. Female weanling Wistar-NIN rats received a diet enriched with either linoleic acid (LA) or alpha linolenic acid (ALA) or long chain n-3 PUFA (fish oil, FO) for 90 days, and mated with stock diet fed male rats. The first generation male pups of ALA and FO group were continued with the respective diet (ALA-ALA and FO-FO). Male pups delivered by LA fed mothers were divided into three groups; continued with either mother's diet (LA-LA) or assigned a diet enriched with either ALA (LA-ALA) or LCn-3PUFA (LA-FO). The effect of this dietary regimen on the expression of genes involved in fatty acid metabolism and phototransduction; total fatty acid composition, was analyzed in the retina after 105 days of post weaning feeding. The data show that prenatal and post weaning feeding of LCn-3PUFA enriched diet upregulated the expression of genes involved in phototransduction and fatty acid metabolism; decreased the level of arachidonic acid in retina. These results suggest that feeding LCn-3PUFA both at prenatal and postnatal could be beneficial for the molecular environment of retina.