Fig. 1

MMS is not associated with alterations in weight gain, blood glucose or plasma corticosterone, but is associated with changes in candidate gene expression in the hypothalamus. A There was no difference in weight gain between control (black solid line) and MMS (orange dashed line) groups during MMS (p = 0.62 for area under the curve, df = 18), n = 10/group. Pup weight was standardised to 100% at the P4 timepoint. There were no differences between control (clear circles) and MMS (black filled circles), in (B) blood glucose (p = 0.91) (n = 6/group, df = 10) or (C) plasma corticosterone concentrations (p = 0.993, df = 14) immediately following MMS (n = 7 and 10/group). D Following a Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons the threshold for statistical significance was set at p < 0.01. MMS was associated with increased mRNA expression of Per1 (p = 0.009, df = 18) but DNMT1 (p = 0.03, df = 19) fell marginally outside this threshold. There were no differences in the expression of GR (p = 0.36, df = 17), MR (p = 0.77, df = 18) or DNMT3a (p = 0.21, df = 18), n = 10/group. All statistical comparisons were made by independent t-test. Error bars indicate standard error of the mean