ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Citicoline represents a dietary source of choline, an essential nutrient, and precursor of cell membrane components, highly required during development and post-injury recovery. OBJECTIVES: We previously showed that perinatal asphyxia (PA) induces hippocampal neuroinflammation and injury that are subject to epigenetic change by maternal diet. The present study investigates maternal citicoline-supplemented diet (CSD) impact on offspring hippocampal response to PA. METHODS: Six-day-old Wistar rats from mothers with standard-diet or CSD were exposed to PA. The hippocampal inflammation and injury were assessed by interleukin-1 beta (IL-1b), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNFα), and S-100B protein (S-100B), 24-48 h post-asphyxia. The microRNAs species miR124, miR132, miR134, miR146, and miR15a were measured from the hippocampus 24 h post-asphyxia, to investigate its epigenetic response to PA and maternal diet. At maturity, the offspring's behavior was analyzed using open field (OFT), T-maze (TMT), and forced swimming (FST) tests. RESULTS: Our data show that the maternal CSD decreased IL-1b (p = 0.02), TNFα (p = 0.007), and S100B (p = 0.01) at 24 h postexposure, upregulated miR124 (p = 0.03), downregulated miR132 (p = 0.002) and miR134 (p = 0.001), shortened the immobility period in FST (p = 0.01), and increased the percentage of passed trials in TMT (p = 0.01) compared to standard-diet. CONCLUSIONS: Maternal CSD reduces hippocampal inflammation and S100B level, triggers epigenetic changes related to homeostatic synaptic plasticity, memory formation, and neuronal tolerance to asphyxia, decreases the depressive-like behavior, and improves the lucrative memory in offspring subjected to PA. Thus, citicoline could be valuable as a maternal dietary strategy in improving the brain response to PA.
Subject(s)
Asphyxia Neonatorum , Cytidine Diphosphate Choline , MicroRNAs , Animals , Asphyxia Neonatorum/diet therapy , Cytidine Diphosphate Choline/pharmacology , Diet , Female , Hippocampus , MicroRNAs/genetics , Pregnancy , Rats , Rats, WistarABSTRACT
The effect of a liquid acidophilic mixture on intestinal biocenosis was studied in 10 premature infants aged 19 days to 1 1/2 months (Group I) with focal inflammation and neurological disorders after hypoxia in the perinatal period, and in 11 children aged 19 days to 3 1/2 months (Group II) with sepsis and intestinal diseases of staphylococcal, proteus and obscure etiology. Before application of the mixture, all the children demonstrated microbiocenosis disorders which were more remarkable in Group II. The liquid acidophilic mixture was shown to have a correcting action as regards lactobacilli, and the quantitative and qualitative composition of intestinal bacteria. The correcting effect exhibited by the mixture was found inadequate to neutralize an adverse effect of the infectious process and intense antibiotic therapy and chemotherapy on intestinal microbiocenosis in children of the first months of life suffering from sepsis and intestinal diseases, provided the mixture was used for 11-20 days.
