Figure 3. RNA-mediated inheritance of metabolic features of males raised on Western-like diet.

Mice were raised on a standard diet except the F0-WD males. Body weights of male (a) and female (b) derived from either F0-WD or F0-SD fathers or from micro-injected one-cell embryos. (c) Fasting blood glucose levels measured as described in Materials and Methods. Areas under the curve (AUC) of the intra-peritoneal glucose tolerance test (AUC-GTT) and of the insulin tolerance test (AUC-ITT) were calculated using the trapezoidal rule²⁵ in order to be able to distinguish the response to either glucose (d) or insulin (e) injections of each mouse individually. All values were recorded at four months of age. F0-SD mice (n = 10); open black circles), F0-WD mice (n = 10; filled black circles). F1-SD (n = 6; open blue circles) and F1-WD (n = 10; filled blue circles) progenies correspond to mice obtained from natural crosses between normal females and males raised on either S or W Diet, respectively. R1-SD (n = 10; open red circles), R1-WD-testis (n = 12; filled red circles) and R1-WD-sperm (n = 10; shaded red circles) correspond to mice derived from fertilised embryos microinjected with SD-RNA testis, WD-RNA testis or WD-RNA sperm, respectively. **p < 0.01.