A binge high sucrose diet provokes systemic and cerebral inflammation in rats without inducing obesity

Omkar L Patkar; Abdalla Z Mohamed; Ashwin Narayanan; Karine Mardon; Gary Cowin; Rajiv Bhalla; Damion H. R Stimson; Michael Kassiou; Kate Beecher; Arnauld Belmer; Ignatius Alvarez Cooper; Michael Morgan; David A Hume; Katharine M Irvine; Selena E Bartlett; Fatima A Nasrallah; Paul Cumming

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-90817-z

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A binge high sucrose diet provokes systemic and cerebral inflammation in rats without inducing obesity

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A binge high sucrose diet provokes systemic and cerebral inflammation in rats without inducing obesity

Omkar L Patkar, Abdalla Z Mohamed, Ashwin Narayanan, Karine Mardon, Gary Cowin, Rajiv Bhalla, Damion H. R Stimson, Michael Kassiou, Kate Beecher, Arnauld Belmer, …

Scientific Reports, Vol.11, pp.1-11

2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-90817-z

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Abstract

glial biology

neuroimmunology

Neuroscience

While the dire cardiometabolic consequences of the hypercaloric modern ‘Western’ diet are well known, there is not much information on the health impact of a high sucrose diet not inducing weight gain. Here, we tested the hypothesis that rats reared with intermittent binge access to sucrose in addition to normal chow would develop an inflammatory response in brain. To test this hypothesis, we undertook serial PET/MRI scans with the TSPO ligand [18F]DPA714 in a group of (n=9) rats at baseline and again after voluntarily consuming 5% sucrose solution three days a week for three months. Compared to a control group fed with normal chow (n=9), the sucrose rats indeed showed widespread increases in the availability of cerebral binding sites for the microglial marker, despite normal weight gain compared to the control diet group. Subsequent immunofluorescence staining of the brains confirmed the PET findings, showing a widespread 20% increase in the abundance of IBA-1-positive microglia with characteristic ‘semi-activated’ morphology in the binge sucrose rats, which had 23% lower density of microglial endpoints and 25% lower mean process length compared to microglia in the control rats with ordinary feeding. GFAP immunofluorescence showed no difference in astroglial coverage in the sucrose rats, except for a slight reduction in hypothalamus. The binge sucrose diet-induced neuroinflammation was associated with a significant elevation of white blood cell counts. Taking these results together, we find that long-term intake of sucrose in a binge paradigm, similar in sucrose content to the contemporary Western diet, triggered a low-grade systemic and central inflammation in non-obese rats. The molecular mechanism of this phenomenon remains to be established.

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Title: A binge high sucrose diet provokes systemic and cerebral inflammation in rats without inducing obesity
Authors: Omkar L Patkar (Author) - Translational Research Institute
Abdalla Z Mohamed (Author) - The University of Queensland
Ashwin Narayanan (Author) - The University of Queensland
Karine Mardon (Author) - The University of Queensland
Gary Cowin (Author) - The University of Queensland
Rajiv Bhalla (Author) - The University of Queensland
Damion H. R Stimson (Author) - The University of Queensland
Michael Kassiou (Author) - The University of Sydney
Kate Beecher (Author) - Queensland University of Technology
Arnauld Belmer (Author) - Queensland University of Technology
Ignatius Alvarez Cooper (Author) - Queensland University of Technology
Michael Morgan (Author) - The University of Melbourne
David A Hume (Author) - Translational Research Institute
Katharine M Irvine (Author) - Translational Research Institute
Selena E Bartlett (Author) - Queensland University of Technology
Fatima A Nasrallah (Author) - The University of Queensland
Paul Cumming (Author) - University of Bern
Publication details: Scientific Reports, Vol.11, pp.1-11
Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
Date published: 2021
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-90817-z
ISSN: 2045-2322
Copyright note: © Te Author(s) 2021. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Organisation Unit: University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; Thompson Institute
Language: English
Record Identifier: 99533704702621
Output Type: Journal article

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Web Of Science research areas: Neurosciences

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