Abstract:

From pregnancy to parturition, Sprague-Dawley rats were daily administered a low protein diet to establish a model of intrauterine growth restriction. From the 12th day of pregnancy, 300 mg/kg taurine was daily added to food until spontaneous delivery occurred. Brain tissues from normal neonatal rats at 6 hours after delivery, neonatal rats with intrauterine growth restriction, and neo-natal rats with intrauterine growth restriction undergoing taurine supplement were obtained for fur-ther experiments. The terminal deoxyribonucleotidyl transferase (TdT)-mediated biotin-16-dUTP nick-end labeling assay revealed that the number of apoptotic cells in the brain tissue of neonatal rats with intrauterine growth restriction significantly increased. Taurine supplement in pregnant rats reduced cell apoptosis in brain tissue from neonatal rats with intrauterine growth restriction. Immunohistochemical staining revealed that taurine supplement increased glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor expression and decreased caspase-3 expression in the cerebral cortex of intra-uterine growth-restricted fetal rats. These results indicate that taurine supplement reduces cell apoptosis through the glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor-caspase-3 signaling pathway, re-sulting in a protective effect on the intrauterine growth-restricted fetal rat brain.

Key words: neural regeneration, intrauterine growth restriction, fetal rats, brain, neural cells, taurine, cell apop-tosis, glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor, caspase-3, neural development, grants-supported paper, neuroregeneration