The effects of chronic unpredicted mild stress on maternal negative emotions and gut microbiota and metabolites in pregnant rats

PeerJ

article

Rui Wang¹  Feng Zhao³  Ye Li¹  Jiashu Zhu¹  Yifei Liu¹  Jiaqi Li¹  Guixiang Yao¹  Hongya Liu³  Suzhen Guan¹  Shuqin Ma⁴ 

[1] Ningxia Medical University;Key Laboratory of Environmental Factors and Chronic Disease Control;Chongqing Medical University;General hospital of Ningxia Medical University

关键词: Chronic stress during pregnancy;    Negative emotion;    Gut microbiota;    16S rRNA gene sequencing;    Metabolomics;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.15113

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundChronic long-term stress is associated with a range of disorders, including depression and a variety of other chronic illnesses. It is well known that maternal exposure to psychosocial stress during pregnancy significantly increases the likelihood of adverse pregnancy outcomes. The gut microbiota has been a popular topic, it is a key mediator of the gut-brain axis and plays an important role in human health; changes in the gut microbiota have been related to chronic stress-induced health impairment, however, the relationship between maternal negative emotions and abnormal gut microbiota and its metabolites during maternal exposure to chronic stress during pregnancy remains unclear.MethodsPregnant rats were subjected to chronic unpredicted mild stress (CUMS) to establish the rat model of chronic stress during pregnancy. The behavioral changes were recorded using sucrose preference test (SPT) and open-field test (OFT), plasma corticosterone levels were determined by radioimmunoassay, and a comprehensive method combining 16S rRNA gene sequencing and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) metabolomics was used to study the effects of stress during pregnancy on the function of intestinal microbiota and its metabolites.ResultsChronic stress during pregnancy not only increased maternal plasma corticosterone (P < 0.05), but also caused maternal depression-like behaviors (P < 0.05). Chronic stress during pregnancy changed the species composition at the family level of maternal gut microbiota, the species abundance of Ruminococcaceae in the stress group (23.45%) was lower than the control group (32.67%) and the species abundance of Prevotellaceae in the stress group (10.45%) was higher than the control group (0.03%) (P < 0.05). Vertical locomotion and 1% sucrose preference percentage in pregnant rats were negatively correlated with Prevotellaceae (r =  − 0.90, P < 0.05). Principal component analysis with partial least squares discriminant analysis showed that the integration points of metabolic components in the stress and control groups were completely separated, indicating that there were significant differences in the metabolic patterns of the two groups, and there were seven endogenous metabolites that differed (P < 0.05).ConclusionsThe negative emotional behaviors that occur in pregnant rats as a result of prenatal chronic stress may be associated with alterations in the gut microbiota and its metabolites. These findings provide a basis for future targeted metabolomics and gut flora studies on the effects of chronic stress during pregnancy on gut flora.

【 授权许可】

CC BY