Effects of vitamin A deficiency during pregnancy on the lung vitamin A status,its receptor and pulmonary surfactant of fetal rats / 重庆医科大学学报

ABSTRACT

Objective:To observe the effects of vitamin A deficiency during pregnancy on the lung vitamin A status,its receptor and pulmonary surfactant of fetal rats.Methods:Prenatal vitamin A normal(VAN)and marginal vitamin A deficiency(MVAD)of Sprague-Dawley rat models were employed.There were 6 in each group.Then they were randomly divided into dexamethasone(Dex)group and control group respectively.I.e VAN-Dex group,VAN-NS group,MVAD-Dex group and MVAD-NS group.From the gestational days 16 to 18,all the rats were given Dex or Saline by intramuscular injection respectively.On the gestational day 19,fetal rats were harvested by cesarean section.The vitamin A concentrations of lung were detected by high-performance liquid chromatography(HPLC),and the levels of pulmonary surfactant(PS)and retinoic acid receptor(RAR)mRNAs were detected by semi-quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR);then the values of PS and RAR mRNAs were compared to glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase(GAPDH)mRNA.Results:(1)The vitamin A concentrations of lungs in VAN-NS group were higher than those of MVAD-NS group,higher in VAN-Dex group than in MVAD-Dex group,higher in MVAD-Dex group than in MVAD-NS group,and higher in VAN-Dex group than in VAN-NS group.There were significant differences among the four groups(P0.05).(3)With regard to the levels of RAR mRNA,the levels of RAR-? and RAR-? mRNAs in VAN-Dex group were higher than those in VAN-NS group,higher in MVAD-Dex group than in MVAD-NS group,lower in VAN-Dex group than in MVAD-Dex group,lower in VAN-NS group than in MVAD-NS group.The levels of RAR-? mRNA in the four groups were similar to those of the RAR-? and RAR-? mRNAs.And There were significant differences(P