High-Fat Diet Alters Circadian Rhythms in Mammary Glands of Pubertal Mice

Childhood obesity in girls is associated with early puberty and menarche. Breast tissue exhibits circadian rhythms. These rhythms may be altered by environmental factors. We hypothesized that a high-fat diet (HFD) disrupts circadian rhythms in pubertal mammary glands. Weanling female C57BL/6 mice were fed the standard AIN93G diet or a HFD (providing 16% or 45% of energy from soybean oil) for 3 weeks. Mammary glands were harvested from 6-week-old mice every 4 h on Zeitgeber time over a 48-h period; rhythmic expressions of circadian genes and genes encoding estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor were analyzed by using the Cosinor model. HFD, compared to AIN93G diet, altered diurnal oscillations of circadian genes in pubertal mammary glands. These included changes in amplitude of Per2, Cry1 (reduced), Clock, Rev-erbα, and Per1 (elevated), a delay in acrophase (the hour at which the rhythm peaks) of Bmal1 by 2.2 h, and changes in mesor (the mean of the rhythm from peak to trough) of Bmal1, Per2, Cry1 (reduced), Rev-rebα, and Per1 (elevated). Furthermore, HFD altered diurnal expression of estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor at both mRNA and protein levels. These findings indicate that HFD alters circadian regulation in pubertal mammary glands, which may contribute to the disturbance of hormonal homeostasis and lead to early development and growth of mammary glands in pubertal mice.