Gestational diabetes influences bone morphogenic protein signaling during heart development in C57BL mice

Introduction: Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM) is one of the most common metabolic complications of pregnancy that causes fetal mortality and morbidity. As uncontrolled gestational diabetes could induce congenital heart defects in the offspring. Therefore, this study was done to evaluate the effect of GDM on bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) gene expression during heart development in the C57BL mouse embryo. Material and Methods: In this experimental study, twelve 8-week old pregnant C57BL with an approximate weight of 130 g were randomly allocated into control and induced diabetic groups. On day 1 of gestation, the dams of the Diabetic group were received 150 mg/kg streptozotocin. While that of the control group were received an equivalent volume of normal saline. On day 11.5 of pregnancy, six embryos were withdrawn from each group. Total RNA was extracted from the cardiac tissue pieces of the embryos for expression of BMPs by quantitative real-time PCR. Results: BMP6 of the induced diabetic group increased to 2.4018-fold compared to the controls (P < 0.05). While BMP 5,7, and 10 increased to (1.58, 1.0445, and 1.7623, respectively) and 1.7623-fold respectively in GDM in comparison to controls. Discussion and Conclusion: Therefore, it is suggested that the GDM could induce heart malformations by the upregulation of BMPs, particularly BMP6 expression.