College of Life Science, The Key Laboratory of Bioactive Materials, Ministry of Education, Nankai University, Tianjin, PR China.
Toxicol Lett. 2010 Mar 15;193(2):167-72. doi: 10.1016/j.toxlet.2010.01.002. Epub 2010 Jan 14.
Perinatal undernutrition has adverse effects on brain physiology as well as learning and memory activity. However, the mechanism is still incompletely understood. Nitric oxide (NO) synthesized by neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) has important roles in neuronal survival and synaptic plasticity as well as contributes to the learning and memory task. The aims of the present study were to investigate whether 50% perinatal food restriction (FR50) produced deleterious effects on the population of nNOS neurons in CA1 and CA3 and the dentate gyrus (DG) region of the hippocampus using ABC immunohistochemical method. The results showed FR50 reduced body weight of offspring on postnatal day (PD)1, PD7, PD10, PD14 and PD21, and this type of food restriction impaired learning and memory of adult male offspring rats (postnatal day 70) and decreased the density of nNOS-positive cells in the CA1, CA3 and DG region of the hippocampus. These findings suggest that perinatal undernutrition affects the activity of nNOS in hippocampus. Thus, these changes in the density of nNOS neurons may partly explain learning and memory disturbances commonly observed in undernourished rats and provide clues to the knowledge of malnutrition effects upon the brain.
围产期营养不良对大脑生理以及学习和记忆活动都有不良影响。然而，其机制尚不完全清楚。神经元型一氧化氮合酶（nNOS）合成的一氧化氮（NO）在神经元存活和突触可塑性方面具有重要作用，并有助于学习和记忆任务。本研究的目的是用 ABC 免疫组织化学方法研究 50%围产期食物限制（FR50）是否对海马 CA1、CA3 和齿状回（DG）区的 nNOS 神经元群体产生有害影响。结果表明，FR50 降低了后代在出生后第 1、7、10、14 和 21 天的体重，这种食物限制损害了成年雄性后代大鼠（出生后第 70 天）的学习和记忆能力，并降低了海马 CA1、CA3 和 DG 区 nNOS 阳性细胞的密度。这些发现表明围产期营养不良会影响海马中 nNOS 的活性。因此，nNOS 神经元密度的这些变化可能部分解释了在营养不良大鼠中常见的学习和记忆障碍，并为了解营养不良对大脑的影响提供了线索。
