Skip to main content
MSPR 2025 Meeting Main banner
Icon Legend
This session is not in your schedule.
This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.
ViewAttendees 6

Basic Science

Maternal Malnutrition Increases Mortality in a Mouse Model of Neonatal Sepsis

Thursday, September 18, 2025
10:00 AM - 10:15 AM CT
Location: Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago Administration Offices- 2nd Floor (former ADA Building), 211 E. Chicago
Disclosure(s):
Lauren L. Bodilly, MD, MS: I do not have any relevant financial / non-financial relationships with any proprietary interests.
Background: Sepsis is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in neonates, with an increased risk when the mother experienced under- or overnutrition. We have demonstrated decreased survival in a mouse model of neonatal Staphylococcus epidermidis (S. epi) sepsis in offspring born to low-fat or high-fat diet fed dams compared to dams fed a control-fat diet.

Objectives: We hypothesize that offspring exposure to maternal under- or overnutrition during either the prenatal or postnatal period will worsen survival during neonatal S. epi sepsis.

Design/Methods: Six-week-old C57BL/6 female mice were placed on a low-fat diet (LFD) (10% kcal from fat), high-fat diet (HFD) (60% kcal from fat), or control diet (CD) (18% kcal from fat) and bred with C57BL/6 male mice three weeks after dietary intervention. Offspring were cross-fostered to different dams within 24 hours of delivery and underwent intraperitoneal S. epidermidis injection on postnatal day 4-5 (n= 8-22/group). Survival was monitored for 5 days. In separate cohorts, plasma and tissue were collected 12 hours after sepsis, with ongoing studies including cytokine and immune cell profiling.

Results: Dams fed a HFD had significantly higher weight, fat mass, and fat percentage compared to dams fed either a CD or LFD (Figure 1). No difference was noted between dams feed a CD and LFD (Figure 1). Both prenatal and postnatal maternal diet influenced offspring weight (Figure 2).
Offspring born to or cross-fostered to dams fed a CD had significantly lower mortality compared to those who were only exposed to dams with malnutrition (prenatal maternal diet x postnatal maternal diet % survival: CDxLFD 40%, CDxHFD 50%, LFDxCD 37.5%, HFDxCD 55%, LFDxHFD 9.1%, HFDxLFD 0%, p< 0.05 for offspring of LFD and HFD dams) (Figure 3). There were no sex differences in survival.

Conclusions: Both prenatal and postnatal maternal diet significantly impacts neonatal survival during S. epi sepsis. Postnatal exposure to a CD-fed dam improves survival outcomes in offspring born to LFD- and HFD-fed dams. This suggests that postnatal maternal dietary intervention may be a promising measure to improve neonatal sepsis outcomes.