MORPHOLOGICAL PARAMETERS AND TESTOSTERONE SERUM LEVELS OF MALE RAT EXPOSED TO PRENATAL STRESS

PALLARES ME; ADROVER E; KATUNAR MR; CALANDRA RS; GONZALEZ-CALVAR SI; ANTONELLI MC

Huerta Grande, Cordoba

Congreso; I Reunion Conjunta de Neurociencias; 2009

Sociedad Argentian de Neurociencias

MORPHOLOGICAL PARAMETERS AND TESTOSTERONE SERUM LEVELS OF MALE RAT EXPOSED TO PRENATAL STRESS. Pallarés, M.E1.; Adrover, E1; Katunar M.R.1; Calandra R.S.2; González-Calvar S.I.2; Antonelli M.C1. 1IQUIFIB- Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Junín 956. Buenos Aires. Argentina. 2Laboratorio de Esteroides- IBYME. Vuelta de Obligado 2490. Buenos Aires. Argentina. Stress during gestation has been reported to alter the neurobiological, immune and endocrine development of the progeny inducing long term behavioural and  biochemical abnormalities in the offspring.  In fact, maternal stress was shown to suppress testosterone (T) surge that occurs in the male embryo between gestational days 17 and 18, responsible for the brain sexual differentiation. In a first approach to evaluate the pituitary-testicular axis in our model of prenatal stress we analyzed the anogenital distance, testicular descent and T levels in serum in prenatally stressed male offspring. Pregnant dams were subjected to three 45 min period sessions of restraint stress per day, between days 14 and 21 of gestation. Anogenital distances were measured at postnatal day (PND) 1, 10 and 21. Analysis of testis descent, defined as the day when both testes fully descended into the scrotal sac, was initiated on PND 21. T levels were quantified by radioimmunoassay employing blood serum from 28, 45, 60 and 75 days old offspring. Prenatally stressed (PS) animals showed reduced anogenital distance at PND 1 and 21, compared to control (C) animals. Moreover, while C animals complete their testis descent at PND 23, PS animals showed a 2-day delay (i.e. PND 25). T serum levels analysis revealed a similar temporal pattern in both PS and C groups: T levels started to increase at PND 45, reaching the maximal serum concentrations at PND 60. However, prenatally stressed animals showed higher T concentrations in comparison with C ones at PND 28 and 75. These results support the idea that prenatal stress alters offspring pituitary-testicular axis, modifying masculine morphological patterns and T serum levels.