Maternal HFD leads to an increased expression of TLR4 in the placenta. A, A maternal HFD leads to increased placental mRNA expression of TLR4. B, TLR4 is expressed in the extravillous trophoblast (asterisk) in both control (CTR) and HFD (not shown) placentas. C, Chorionic villous stroma is negative for TLR4 staining in the control placentas. D, TLR4 is expressed by chorionic villous stroma (arrow) and syncytiotrophoblasts in HFD placentas. E, Placenta MCP-1 mRNA expression is increased in HFD animals when compared with CTR. F, Placenta IL-1β mRNA expression is increased in the HFD animals. CTR, n = 5; HFD, n = 8. *, P < 0.05, Mann Whitney U test. The mRNA expression was normalized to β-actin as a housekeeping gene. Chromagen is brown. Sections were counterstained with hematoxylin.