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Essential Fatty Acid Deficiency: Effects of Cross-Fostering Mice at Birth on Myelin Levels and Composition¹

Department of Chemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742

Female mice were assigned an essential fatty acid (EFA)-deficient diet or a control diet at mating, and litters were cross-fostered at birth to produce three groups of animals: pups fed a control diet prenatally and deficient diet postnatally (C D); a deficient diet prenatally and a control diet postnatally (D C); and a control diet throughout life (C C). The yield of myelin, the developmental pattern of the major proteins, and the proportion of major lipids were examined in the purified myelin of the three groups at 3, 6, and 9 weeks. Myelin yield was lower at 9 weeks in both the (C D) and (D C) groups compared to controls. There was an alteration in the ratios of the proteins and major lipid classes in myelin from the (C D) animals at 9 weeks, whereas the ratios of these components were normal in the (D C) animals at this age. However, at three weeks the lipid composition of the myelin isolated from (D C) animals was abnormal. The results suggest that postnatal EFA deficiency results in hypomyelination in mice and that the myelin formed is of abnormal composition during early postnatal brain development. Prenatal EFA deficiency results in less severe hypomyelination with only the earliest myelin formed being of abnormal lipid composition.

KEY WORDS: • essential fatty acids • myelination • cross-fostering • myelin proteins • myelin lipids

¹ A preliminary report on this work was presented at the annual meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, New Orleans, LA, April 1982. Berkow, S. E. & Campagnoni, A. T. (1982) Fed. Proc. 41, 545 (abs).

² S.E.B. is grateful to the University of Maryland Graduate School for providing partial support for the presentation of this work at the F.A.S.E.B. meetings in April, 1982.

³ Present address: Department of Pediatrics, Georgetown University School of Medicine, Georgetown University, Washington, D. C.

⁴ To whom reprint requests should be sent.

Manuscript received 23 August 1982.