Intergenerational implications of alcohol intake: metabolic disorders in alcohol-naïve rat offspring

Pawel Mierzejewski; Alicja Zakrzewska; Julita Kuczyńska; Edyta Wyszogrodzka; Monika Dominiak

doi:10.7717/peerj.9886

Intergenerational implications of alcohol intake: metabolic disorders in alcohol-naïve rat offspring

PeerJ. 2020 Sep 11:8:e9886. doi: 10.7717/peerj.9886. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Pawel Mierzejewski¹, Alicja Zakrzewska¹, Julita Kuczyńska¹, Edyta Wyszogrodzka¹, Monika Dominiak¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Pharmacology, Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology, Warsaw, Poland.

Abstract

Alcohol drinking may be associated with an increased risk of various metabolic diseases. Rat lines selectively bred for alcohol preference and alcohol avoidance constitute an interesting model to study inherited factors related to alcohol drinking and metabolic disorders. The aim of the present study was to compare the levels of selected laboratory biomarkers of metabolic disorders in blood samples from naïve offspring of Warsaw alcohol high-preferring (WHP), Warsaw alcohol low-preferring (WLP), and wild Wistar rats. Blood samples were collected from 3-month old (300-350 g) alcohol-naïve, male offspring of WHP (n = 8) and WLP rats (n = 8), as well as alcohol-naïve, male, wild Wistar rats. Markers of metabolic, hepatic, and pancreatic disorders were analysed (levels of homocysteine, glucose, total cholesterol, triglycerides and γ-glutamyl transferase (GGT), aspartate (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and amylase serum activities). Alcohol-naïve offspring of WHP, WLP, and wild Wistar rats differed significantly in the levels of triglycerides, total cholesterol, homocysteine, as well as in the activity of GGT, ALT, AST, and amylase enzymes. Most markers in the alcohol-naïve offspring of WHP rats were altered even thought they were never exposed to alcohol pre- or postnatally. This may suggest that parental alcohol abuse can have a detrimental influence on offspring vulnerability to metabolic disorders.

Keywords: Alcohol; Alcohol-preferring rats; Epigenetics; Homocysteine; Metabolic disorders.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology (grant no. 501-38-004-18023). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.