Effect of Maternal Intake of Organically or Conventionally
Produced Feed on Oral Tolerance Development in Offspring Rats
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Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate
the effect of maternal
consumption of organically or conventionally produced feed on immunological
biomarkers and their offsprings’ response to a novel dietary
antigen. First-generation rats were fed plant-based diets from two
different cultivation systems (organic or conventional) or a chow.
Second-generation rats were exposed to ovalbumin (OVA) via their mother’s
milk and subsequently challenged with OVA after weaning onto the chow
diet. In the chow diet group feeding the dams OVA resulted in suppression
of the pups’ anti-OVA antibody response to the OVA challenge
(total OVA-specific IgG was 197 for the OVA-treated chow diet group
and 823 for the control chow diet group (arbitrary ELISA units)).
In contrast, OVA exposure of the dams from the plant-based dietary
groups did not result in a similar suppression. Cultivation system
had no effect on the immunological biomarkers, except for a higher
spleen prostaglandin E<sub>2</sub> (PGE<sub>2</sub>) concentration
in pups originating from dams fed the conventional plant-based diet
(223 ng/L) than from those fed the organic plant-based diet (189 ng/L)