Fig. 8: Maternal obesity impairs embryo telomere elongation that is restored by treatment with mitochondria-acting therapeutics in vitro at fertilization.
From: Telomere length in offspring is determined by mitochondrial-nuclear communication at fertilization
Ovulated oocytes from lean or obese mice ( > 36 g) were cultured in media containing 10 µM BGP-15 or 1 nM SS-31 (or equal volume of vehicle (-)) from fertilization (a) Created in BioRender. Gordon, Y. (2025) https://BioRender.com/w92h854. Embryos treated with 10 µM BGP-15 were analyzed for MitoSox Red (red) and Hoechst-3342 (blue) in zygotes (b; n = 23 lean, n = 15 lean +BGP-15, n = 21 obese, n = 17 obese +BGP-15), TMRM (red) and Hoechst-3342 (blue) in morulae (c; n = 18 lean, n = 17 obese, n = 18 obese +BGP-15), and telomere length (telomere/ Rn18s (2-ΔΔCt)) in ICM (d; n = 43 lean, n = 32 lean +BGP-15, n = 24 obese, n = 30 obese +BGP-15). Embryos treated with 1 nM SS-31 were analyzed for MitoSox Red (red) and Hoechst-3342 (blue) in zygotes (e; n = 15 lean, n = 12 lean +SS-31, n = 15 obese, n = 18 obese +SS-31) and telomere length (telomere/ Rn18s (2-ΔΔCt)) in ICM (f; n = 29 lean, n = 29 lean +SS-31, n = 31 obese, n = 40 obese +SS-31). Individual data points are plotted, horizontal lines are mean ± SEM (b, c, e). Violin plots show population distribution, and horizontal lines are mean ± SEM (d, Ff). qPCR data was log transformed for statistical analysis. Data analyzed using one-way ANOVA; *p < 0.05, **p = 0.0013, ***p ≤ 0.0009, ****p < 0.0001. For exact P values see Supplementary Table 8. Source data are provided as a Source Data File.
