Experimental evaluation of morphogenetic effects of unbalanced maternal diet on the offspring of BALB/c, CBA and BC/IPAE lines of mice

The geometric morphometrics methods were used to evaluate differences in the variability of the size and shape of the mandible in experimental groups of descendants of BALB/c, CBA and BC/IPAE linear mice with standard (control) and two disturbed diets of the mother: diet-1 - nutrition with oat grains during pregnancy and feeding of offspring; diet-2 - change of the mother’s diet from oatmeal monodiet to the standard nutrition after the birth of young mice. The most significant contribution to changeability of centroid sizes (CS) was made by the factor “diet” (D), not “line” (L), as well as by the interaction of factors “L x D”. The influence of the factor “sex” (S) did not manifest itself. The variation in the shape of the mandible was caused mainly not by factor D but by factor L. The maternal diet regimes had an ambiguous effect on the growth and development: diet-1 caused growth inhibition and destabilization of mandible morphogenesis, whereas diet-2 made sizes, shape and stability of morphogenesis in all lines similar to the control groups. The results can be used to solve a number of problems on population ecology, as well as taken into account in the field of medical perinatal nutritional science.