Fig 2: Western blot analysis of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), hypothalamus (HYP), and hippocampus (HPC) of male mice on either a moderate (ModSe) or high selenium (HiSe) diet being treated with either CORT or vehicle control (VEH). (A) Percentage change in glucocorticoid receptor (GCR) protein levels. HPC: CORT and HiSe consumption both independently decreased GCR levels [pCORT = 0.0018, F(1,9) = 15.15. pSeDiet = 0.0077, F(1,9) = 11.68]. HiSe diet without CORT decreased GCR to the level of CORT-exposed ModSe mice, and GCR expression in both groups was significantly lower than the ModSe/VEH group (B) Percentage change in SELENOW protein levels. HYP: CORT increased SELENOW levels [pCORT = 0.0178, F(1,9) = 8.378], particularly within HiSe offspring. (C) Percentage change in GPX1 protein levels. CORT significantly increased GPX1 levels in the PFC [pCORT = 0.0060, F(1,9) = 12.79], HYP [pCORT = 0.0015, F(1,9) = 20.28] and HPC [pCORT = <0.0001, F(1,9) = 63.59]. HiSe diet consumption increased GPX1 in the HPC: pSeDiet = 0.0147, F(1,9) = 9.052. GPX1 reached the highest levels within the HiSe/CORT condition as this group was significantly higher than the ModSe/CORT group. (D) Percentage change in GPX4 protein levels. GPX4 was elevated in response to CORT in all brain regions: PFC [pCORT = 0.0238, F(1,9) = 7.372], HYP [pCORT = 0.0045, F(1,9) = 14.08], and HPC [pCORT = 0.0037, F(1,9) = 15.15]. Unexpectedly, maternal Se intake negatively impacted GPX4 levels in the PFC: pSeDiet = 0.0253, F(1,9) = 7.171. Individual data points are shown and bars indicate the mean ± standard error of the mean. All comparisons were made within each brain region for each protein via 2-way ANOVA, where # indicates a significant effect of CORT and % a significant effect of Se diet, with Tukey’s multiple comparisons used as a post-hoc test: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. N = 3, 3, 3, 4 indicated in graph.