ABSTRACT
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To study the effects of cadmium chloride in anterior pituitary and the relation between apoptosis and expression of procaspase-9 mRNA.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>In vivo studies:40 SD male rats were randomly distributed into four groups which were administered with CdCl2 at different doses by gavage for 6 weeks;</p><p><b>IN VITRO STUDIES</b>the rats' anterior pituitary cells were primarily cultured for 120 hours, then treated with CdCl2 at the dose of 0, 1.56, 3.12, 6.25, 12.50, 25.00, 50.00, 100.00 micromol/L for 6 hours; The indices included: expression of procaspase-9 mRNA, detection of apoptosis with TUNEL assay.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The results showed the excretion of ACTH, LH seemed to be decreased dramatically and the apoptosis inclined to enhance remarkably, and further more, the expression of procaspase-9 mRNA appeared to be increased significantly as compared with those of the control. It was show that a dose-effect relationship between the CdCl2 dosing and indices above with the regression analysis and a linear correlation between the mean gray value of apoptosis cell and the relative gray value of procaspase-9 mRNA positive cell. The results indicated that damnification, for example, apoptosis could be caused by certain dose of CdCl2 in anterior pituitary cells with dose dependent manner. Caspase-9 might play a role in the occurrence of apoptosis.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>It was suggested that cadmium could induce apoptosis of anterior pituitary both in vivo and in vitro in the manner of dose-dependent, and caspase-9 might play a role during above processes.</p>