Offspring’s hydromineral adaptive responses to maternal undernutrition during lactation

Abstract

Early development, throughout gestation and lactation, represents a period of extreme vulnerability during which susceptibility to later metabolic and cardiovascular injuries increases. Maternal diet is a major determinant of the foetal and newborn developmental environment; maternal undernutrition may result in adaptive responses leading to structural and molecular alterations in various organs and tissues, such as the brain and kidney. New nephron anlages appear in the renal cortex up to postnatal day 4 and the last anlages to be formed develop into functional nephrons by postnatal day 10 in rodents. We used a model of undernutrition in rat dams that were food-restricted during the first half of the lactation period in order to study the long-term effects of maternal diet on renal development, behaviour and neural hydromineral control mechanisms. The study showed that after 40% food restriction in maternal dietary intake, the dipsogenic responses for both water and salt intake were not altered; Fos expression in brain areas investigated involved in hydromineral homeostasis control was always higher in the offspring in response to isoproterenol. This was accompanied by normal plasma osmolality changes and typical renal histology. These results suggest that the mechanisms for the control of hydromineral balance were unaffected in the offspring of these 40% food-restricted mothers. Undernutrition of the pups may not be as drastic as suggested by dams' restriction.

Effects of bisphenol A treatment during pregnancy on kidney development in mice: a stereological and histopathological study

“…57 There were no histopathological lesions that demonstrated the loss of nephrons and/or functional changes in the young adult mice; however, the lower nephron density and the minor lesions found in the BPA-treated animals suggested that they could develop more extensive lesions and/or a greater degree of lesions with ageing than those of the control animals. 3,4 This study improved the understanding of the renal BPA developmental effects. However, further studies are needed to clarify the potential role of BPA exposure in the pathogenesis and progression of renal diseases.…”

“…Studies supporting this intrauterine programming hypothesis have demonstrated that adverse foetal conditions result in adaptive responses that lead to structural and molecular alterations in various organs and tissues, such as the kidney. 3,4 The kidney is an extremely common target organ for therapeutic and diagnostic agents. [5][6][7][8] Nephrons are the functional units in the kidney.…”

Effects of short-term exposure to low doses of bisphenol A on cellular senescence in the adult rat kidney

“…Serum osmolality was determined using a Wescor 5100C Osmometer. The kidneys were removed and fixed (4% paraformaldehyde in 0.1 M phosphate buffer, pH 7.4) for 4 h. Next, they were washed in running water and incubated in 70% ethanol until processing (Nuñez et al 2015). The kidneys were then embedded in paraffin, serial sectioned at a thickness of 5 μm, and stained with periodic acid-Schiff (PAS) stain and anti-insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) antibodies (1:100, Santa Cruz Biotechnology, cat.…”