Dietary trans fatty acids combined with a marginal essential fatty acid status during the pre- and postnatal periods do not affect growth or brain fatty acids but may alter behavioral development in B6D2F(2) mice

The objective of this study was to investigate whether dietary trans fatty acids (TFA) during the pre- and postnatal periods would exacerbate the effe cts of marginal essential fatty acid (EFA) status on growth, brain long-cha in polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) and behavioral development in B6D2 F(2) mice. Pregnant B6D2F(1) females were randomly assigned to one of the f ollowing three diets: marginal EFA plus 22% trans 18:1 (mEFA + TFA); margin al EFA (mEFA); and control (CON), The total 18:1 content in all diets was s imilar. The offspring were weaned and maintained on the same diets. Both th e mEFA and mEFA + TFA groups had reduced growth and brain weight compared w ith CON, but did not differ from one another. As expected, the mEFA and mEF A + TFA groups had reduced docosahexaenoic acid [DHA; 22:6(n-3)]) and incre ased 22.5(n-6) concentrations in brain phosphatidylcholine (PC) and phospha tidylethanolamine (PE) compared with the CON group, but again did not diffe r from one another. Reversal learning in the T-water maze was significantly slower in the mEFA + TFA groups compared with the mEFA group and both were slower than the CON group. These findings illustrate that TFA combined wit h a marginal EFA status do not exacerbate the effects of marginal EFA statu s on growth or brain LC-PUFA, However, long-term effects of dietary TFA dur ing the pre- and postnatal period on behavioral development and neural func tion should be investigated in future studies.