Alteration, by early underfeeding, of cellular multiplication and differentiation in the inguinal fat pads of rats.

The effect of litter size on the incorporation of labeled thymidine (TdR) into DNA was studied in the stromal and the adipocyte fractions of the rat inguinal tissue. In experiment 1 the animal were kept in litters of 18 (UF) or 6 (control) from birth till 10 days. They were injected with [2-14C] TdR at day 3 and killed at 60 minutes, 1, 3 and 7 days post-injection. In experiment 2, the pups were raised in litters of 18 during 3 (RF3), 6 (RF6) or 10 (RF10) days, and distributed again in litters of six. They were injected with [2-14C] TdR or [14CH3]TdR at the beginning of the refeeding and killed as described previously. In all experiments the weight of the inguinal tissue was more reduced than the total body weight. In the UF, the proliferation was markedly reduced in cellular fractions as was the differentiation of stromal cells into adipocytes from six days of underfeeding. In the RF3 and the RF6 there was an attempt to recover the cell number as suggested by the recycling of the degradation products of TdR for DNA synthesis. In the RF10, cell multiplication and differentiation were strongly affected by the length of the deprivation period.