Observation of prenatal stress-induced depression-like behavior in offspring rats and its mechanism
JIA Ning
SUN Qinru
SU Qian
Abstract：Objective To observe the depression-like behavior of the offspring rats from pregnant rats with prenatal stress ( PS) and to investigate its mechanism.Methods Twenty pregnant rats were randomly divided into the PS group and control ( CON) group, 10 in each.From the 14th d of pregnancy ( in late pregnancy) , rats in the observation group were given restraint stress, 45 min/time, 3 times/d, a total of 7 d.Rats in the control group were conventionally fed with-out any treatment.We took 20 offspring rats ( male and female in half) which were born 30 d from each group to undergo sucrose preference test ( SPT) , and calculated the percentage of 1%sugar water consumption in male and female offspring rats of the two groups.Meanwhile, the concentrations of glutamate (Glu),γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and serotonin (5-HT) in hippocampus of the rats were measured by Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry ( LC-MS/MS) .Re-sults The percentages of 1%sugar water consumption in male and female offspring rats of the PS groups was 63.13 ± 3.47 and 59.67 ±3.33, respectively, and 79.22 ±7.07 and 78.67 ±4.72 in the control group (P<0.05).Further-more, the concentration of Glu was (24.30 ±1.00) ng/g in the female PS group which was more than that 〔(21.20 ± 0.90) ng/g〕 in the female CON group (P<0.05).Similarly, the concentration of Glu in male PS group was (31.22 ± 1.57)ng/g, which was more than that〔(24.01 ±0.28)ng/g〕 in the male CON group (P<0.05).Contrarily, the con-centration of GABA in female PS group was (7.42 ±0.36) ng/g, which was significantly lower than that〔(13.28 ±0.38) ng/g〕 in the female CON group (P<0.05).The concentration of GABA in male PS group was (8.35 ±0.39) ng/g, which was significantly lower than that〔(9.94 ±0.30) ng/g〕 in the female CON group (P<0.05).Only the female PS offspring showed lower 5-HT concentration 〔(0.27 ±0.02) ng/g〕 as compared with that of the CON group 〔(0.35 ± 0.03)ng/g〕(P<0.05).Conclusion Prenatal stress can result in the depression-like behavior of offspring rats, and its mechanism may be related to that prenatal stress increases the Glu content of hippocampal tissue and decreases the levels of GABA, 5-HT of offspring rats.
Keywords：prenatal stressdepression-like behaviorhippocampusglutamic acidγ-aminobutyric acid5-hydroxytryptamineanimal experiment
Publication Date：2016-01-01
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：4( 16-19 )