Fig. 1
Effects of DHA enrichment and EPS on expression of genes that are critical for vascularization and nutrient transport in male and female placentas (please refer to the “Results” section for additional details). a There was a diet × sex interaction of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha (PPARα) expression (F1,10 = 12.34, p = 0.006). Post hoc analysis revealed PPARα expression was upregulated in EPS-CTL diet male placentas relative to EPS-CTL female placentas (p = 0.042, denoted in the figure as the **). PPARα was downregulated in EPS-DHA diet male placentas relative to EPS-CTL diet male placentas (p = 0.038, denoted in the figure as the #). PPARα was downregulated in CTL-DHA diet male placentas relative to EPS-CTL male placentas (p < 0.05, denoted in the figure as the $). b There was a diet × sex interaction in expression of insulin-like growth factor-binding protein1 (IGFBP1) in the placenta (F1,10 = 6.17, p = 0.032). Post oc analysis revealed that IGFBP1 was upregulated in EPS-CTL males compared with EPS-CTL female placentas (p < 0.01). IGFBP1 was upregulated in EPS-CTL males compared with EPS-DHA male placentas (p < 0.05, denoted in the figure as the #). **p < 0.01. c There was a diet × sex interaction on hypoxia inducible factor 3a (HIF3α) expression (F2,14 = 10.93, p = 0.008). Post hoc analysis revealed a trend towards HIF3α upregulation in EPS-CTL diet male placentas relative to EPS-CTL diet female placentas (p = 0.05, denoted in the figure as #). Additionally, there was a trend for upregulation of HIF3α expression in EPS-CTL male placenta relative to EPS-DHA male placenta (p = 0.062, denoted in the figure as #). d There was a trending main effect of sex on expression of vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA) (F2,14 = 4.34, p = 0.053), whereby females exhibited upregulation compared with males. No other significant pairwise comparisons were detected. e, f No significant effects were observed in the gene expression of e OGT and f GLUT4 across treatment groups (all p values > 0.05). n = 3–5 animals/sex/diet/stress treatment. **p < 0.01. Data represented as mean ± SEM with individual data points overlaid