Study of hypothalamic leptin receptor expression in low-birth-weight piglets and effects of leptin supplementation on neonatal growth and development

摘要

It has been recently demonstrated in rodents that leptin is involved, during perinatal life, in the establishment of metabolic programming. Leptin is a 16-kDa cytokine produced mainly by the adipose tissue but also by several ectopic sources, such as the placenta (27), mammary glands (44), and stomach (4). It plays a pivotal role, at the hypothalamic level, in food intake regulation and energy expenditure. Vickers et al. (49) have shown that, in female IUGR rat pups, postnatal leptin treatment during the first 2 wk of life corrects the adverse developmental programming and normalizes metabolic pattern, adiposity, and body weight in adulthood. More recently, we have demonstrated that, in normal-birth-weight female rats, blockage of leptin action via the use of a leptin-specific antagonist during neonatal life impacts future sensitivity to this cytokine and predisposes the animals to diet-induced obesity (3). All of these drawbacks could originate from an altered organization of hypothalamic structures involved in metabolic regulation