Indeed, relative CH 3 -THF abundance showed borderline significant trends toward decreases in either FA deficient [72.38 ± 4.6% (0 mg/kg), 77.2% ± 3.0% (2 mg/kg), P = 0.057] or FA excess offspring (73.99 ± 2.3%, P = 0.063), suggesting that neither of these conditions, deficiency or excess, favor diversion of one-carbon groups toward methylation.
Similarly, at P0, we found a ~3-fold increase in cells undergoing programmed cell death in the deficient group [109.3 ± 26.2 (0 mg/kg), P = 0.005, 30.0 ± 12.2 (2 mg/kg)] and a comparable trend in the 20 mg/kg group that did not reach statistical significance (116.8 ± 76.5 P = 0.12) ( Fig. 5 E ).
Interestingly, with the exception of methylenetetrahydrofolate (CH 2 -THF) that showed a trend toward increase with increasing maternal FA intake, all other folate species displayed trends in the same direction in either treatment group.