Influência do consumo de gordura interesterificada sobre parâmetros comportamentais bioquímicos e moleculares em ratos

Abstract

Fatty acids are important constituents of neural phospholipid membranes where play an essential role in the central nervous system (CNS), modifying the plasticity and fluidity of these membranes, particularly during early stages of development and are also involved in different neuropsychiatric pathologies. In the last decades, changes in eating habits have been associated with increased consumption of processed foods, which include the use of interesterified fat (IF), who provides texture, crispness and stability, enhance flavor and longer shelf life to the product. Studies have shown that chronic consumption of IF is related to cardiovascular problems and an increased risk of developing diabetes. However, the literature lacks data on the influence of this fat consumption on neural functions and their reflexes on neuropsychiatric disorders. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of IF during gestation, lactation and throughout life, in first generation adult rats. For development of the experimental protocol, pregnant rats received oral (gavage) supplementation of soybean oil (3g/kg body weight - control group) or IF (3g/kg body weight – experimental group) and the pups were maintained under the same maternal supplementation until adulthood, when they undergo a behavioral evaluation protocol involving memory parameters. Sequentially,the generation of reactive species (RS), protein carbonylation (PC) levels and catalase activity (CAT), as well as BDNF and TrkB levels, were determined in the hippocampus. The development of this protocol allowed to observe that IF supplementation impaired the acquisition of short (1h) and long (24h) term memory, which was observed in new object recognition test (NORT), whose findings may be related to increased RS generation and PC levels, along with reduced CAT activity, also observed in this experimental group.In addition, animals of the IF group also showed a higher incorporation of saturated fatty acids and linoleic acid, along with a lower incorporation of docosahexaenoic acid when compared to control group. At molecular level, animals of the IF group showed lower levels of BDNF, as well as their TrkB receptor.Of particular importance to our results, different correlations were observed involving the percentage of fatty acids present in hippocampus, the levels of BDNF and TrkB and markers of oxidative damages (PC and RS), indicating a causal interactivity of these markers on memory impairment of animals supplementaed with IF. Taken together, these findings suggest that a diet rich in processed foods, source of IF, particularly during early stages of development was able to cause memory impairments throughout life, possibly due to changes in fatty acids composition of neural phospholipid membranes, affecting their oxidative status and the functionality of neurotrophins in memory-related areas, such as hippocampus.