Hale R L, Randall C L, Becker H C, Middaugh L D
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston 29403.
Alcohol. 1992 Jul-Aug;9(4):287-92. doi: 10.1016/0741-8329(92)90068-l.
In utero exposure to ethanol has been shown to alter sexually dimorphic behaviors in rats. However, it is not clear whether this phenomenon is robust in other species, such as the mouse, which is sensitive to ethanol-induced birth defects. Further, it is not known whether significant differences exist across murine strains. If similar to the classic teratogenic effects of ethanol, it would be expected that strain differences in sensitivity should be evident, with some strains demonstrating an alteration in sexually dimorphic behavior and other strains demonstrating little or no effect. As a first attempt to address these issues, we have examined two mouse strains widely used in prenatal alcohol research, the inbred C3H/He and C57BL/6J strains. Scentmarking was selected as the behavior of interest. It is robustly sexually dimorphic in the rat and mouse, with males marking more than females and preliminary reports have demonstrated that in utero ethanol exposure reduces this behavior in the male rat. In the mouse strains selected for study, pregnant females were provided with either a liquid diet consisting of 25% ethanol-derived calories or pair-fed an isocaloric liquid diet from gestation days 6-18. An additional control group was included which was fed laboratory chow ad lib throughout gestation. Male and female offspring of each strain were tested for scentmarking at 65-75 days of age. As expected, results showed that the effect of prenatal ethanol exposure on scentmarking varied with both strain and sex. In the C3H/He strain, scentmarking was reduced significantly in male ethanol-exposed offspring (i.e., the males were feminized).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
子宫内暴露于乙醇已被证明会改变大鼠的性二态行为。然而，目前尚不清楚这种现象在其他物种（如对乙醇诱导的出生缺陷敏感的小鼠）中是否同样显著。此外，也不清楚不同小鼠品系之间是否存在显著差异。如果与乙醇的经典致畸作用类似，可以预期品系间的敏感性差异会很明显，一些品系的性二态行为会发生改变，而其他品系则几乎没有影响或没有影响。作为解决这些问题的首次尝试，我们研究了产前酒精研究中广泛使用的两种小鼠品系，近交C3H/He和C57BL/6J品系。选择气味标记作为感兴趣的行为。它在大鼠和小鼠中具有很强的性二态性，雄性比雌性标记更多，初步报告表明子宫内乙醇暴露会减少雄性大鼠的这种行为。在所选的研究小鼠品系中，怀孕的雌性小鼠从妊娠第6天到第18天被给予由25%乙醇热量组成的液体饮食或等热量的配对液体饮食。还包括一个额外的对照组，该组在整个妊娠期自由采食实验室饲料。每个品系的雄性和雌性后代在65 - 75日龄时进行气味标记测试。正如预期的那样，结果表明产前乙醇暴露对气味标记的影响因品系和性别而异。在C3H/He品系中，暴露于乙醇的雄性后代的气味标记显著减少（即雄性出现雌性化）。（摘要截断于250字）
