An imbalance in the methionine content of the maternal diet reduces postnatal growth in the rat.

The pregnant rat fed a low-protein diet has become widely used as a model system in the study of the prenatal programming of adult metabolism and disease. When pregnant rats of the hooded Lister strain were fed semisynthetic diets containing 18% or 9% casein supplemented with 0.5% dl-methionine, there was significant postnatal mortality in the group fed the low-protein diet. In a second experiment, dams were fed diets containing 9% casein supplemented with varying concentrations of dl-methionine up to 0.4% (w/w) and compared with a group fed a diet containing 18% casein supplemented with 0.5% dl-methionine. At birth, the pups from dams fed the low-protein diets supplemented with 0.2% dl-methionine or greater were significantly smaller than those of the dams fed the diet containing 18% protein. By 25 weeks of age, the body weight of the offspring of dams fed the low-protein diet supplemented with 0.2% or 0.3% dl-methionine were approximately 10% lower than those in the control group of offspring from dams fed 18% protein supplemented with 0.5% dl-methionine. There were corresponding changes in the weights of the major organs. These data suggest that increasing the dl-methionine supplement in the low-protein diet retards the growth of the fetus and affects the mature adult body weight. In contrast to the findings of other studies that used different formulas of the low-protein diet, the glucose tolerance in the offspring was unaffected by the protein content of the maternal diet at all levels of dl-methionine supplementation. These results suggest that the changes in metabolism of the offspring result from interactions between protein, lipids, and carbohydrates in the maternal diet, rather than a consequence of postnatal growth retardation per se and highlight the importance of considering all components of the maternal diet in the programming mechanism.