Maternal obesity impairs fetal cardiomyocyte contractile function in sheep

Obesity is a major public health problem worldwide. In the United States, one‐third of women of reproductive age are obese. Human studies show that maternal obesity (MO) predisposes offspring to cardiovascular disease. However, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Given the similarities between pregnancy in sheep and humans, we studied sheep to examine the impact of MO on fetal cardiomyocyte contractility at term. We observed that MO impaired cardiomyocyte contractility by reducing peak shortening and shortening/relengthening velocity, prolonging time to relengthening. MO disrupted Ca 2+ homeostasis in fetal cardiomyocytes, increasing intracellular Ca 2+ and inducing cellular Ca 2+ insensitivity. The Ca 2+ ‐release channel was impaired, but Ca 2+ uptake was unaffected by MO. The upstream kinases that phosphorylate the Ca 2+ ‐release channel — ryanodine receptor‐2, PKA, and calmodulin‐dependent protein kinase II—were activated in MO fetuses. Contractile dysfunction was associated with an increased ratio of myosin heavy chain (MHC)‐β to MHC‐α and upregulated cardiac troponin (cTn)‐T and tropomyosin, as well as cTn‐I phosphorylation. In summary, this is the first characterization of the effects of MO on fetal cardiomyocyte contractility. Our findings indicate that MO impairs fetal cardiomyocyte contractility through altered intracellular Ca 2+ handling, overloading fetal cardiomyocyte intracellular Ca 2+ and aberrant myofilament protein composition. These mechanisms may contribute to developmental programming by MO of offspring cardiac function and predisposition to later life cardiovascular disease in the offspring.—Wang, Q., Zhu, C., Sun, M., Maimaiti, R., Ford, S. P., Nathanielsz, P. W., Ren, J., Guo, W. Maternal obesity impairs fetal cardiomyocyte contractile function in sheep. FASEB J. 33, 2587–2598 (2019). www.fasebj.org