Developmental programming: gestational exposure to excess testosterone disrupts maternal steroid homeostasis and perturbs the steroid-lipid relationship in sheep

Gestational hyperandrogenism may disrupt the steroid and lipid metabolism homeostatic balance that is important for pregnancy progression. We hypothesized that excess gestational testosterone would disrupt the maternal steroid profile and the steroid-lipid relationship. Using sheep, we investigated maternal delta-4 (Δ4) and delta-5 (Δ5) steroids and the steroid-lipidome relationship in gestational testosterone excess (n = 12, 100 mg T-propionate days 30–90 of gestation twice-weekly intramuscularly) and control (n = 5, vehicle) Suffolk sheep. Steroids were measured using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry and lipids by shotgun lipidomics. Principal component analysis showed clear separation of control and the gestational testosterone excess groups. The main impact of testosterone excess was on the Δ5 pathway, with reductions in 17-OH pregnenolone, androstenediol, allopregnanolone, and androsterone. In the Δ4 pathway only a trend for reduced androstenedione and a large magnitude increase in corticosterone and decrease in 11-deoxycorticosterone was observed. Dimensionality reduction partial least squares regression models revealed disruptive impact of testosterone-excess on the steroid-lipid relationship prevailing in controls namely with lipid biosynthesis and metabolism and enrichment in cholesterol biosynthetic, circadian clock and transcriptional regulatory, and liver steatosis pathways. Disrupted steroid-lipid associations in the gestational testosterone excess group showed linkage to complex disease-profiles centering on lipid metabolism and transport, cholesterol, and of relevance to hyperlipidemia, gestational diabetes, and hypertension in the enrichment analysis. Fewer lipid species were associated with individual steroids in gestational testosterone excess group, indicative of loss of the majority of the homeostatic steroid-lipid associations. This study provides a novel screening insight into the steroid-lipid relationship that prevails during normal pregnancy and the disruptive impact of hyperandrogenism in perturbing this homeostasis.