Study of tumour global DNA methylation and mtor pathway genes promoters methylation in maternally leucine-supplemented tumour-bearing adult rats

Cancer-cachexia is a multifactorial syndrome characterised by negative protein balance, associated with alterations in Akt/mTOR (protein synthesis) and Ubiquitin-proteasome (protein degradation) pathways. Maternal supplementation with the amino acid leucine during pregnancy and lactation can ameliorate muscle loss in adult offspring tumour-bearing rats. The mTOR pathway proteins expression is altered in this situation, and these modifications may be associated with epigenetic modifications. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to analyse the methylation in CpG islands of Pik3r6, mTOR and RPS6KB1 promoters in muscle and the global DNA methylation in tumour tissue in order to investigate the possible epigenetic modifications provided by the maternal diet in the offspring.