Effect of maternal protein-calorie malnutrition on fetal rat cerebellar neurogenesis.

Pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats were fed, ad libitum, diets containing either 24% (control) or 4% casein (deprived) from conception through gestation. On the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th or the 18th day of gestation the dams of both dietary groups were injected with 2.5 mCi [3H]thymidine per gram of body weight. Pups born to these dams were reared by stock diet-fed foster mothers to insure normal postnatal nutrition and were killed on postnatal day 28. Retention of isotope in the nuclei of four types of macroneurons, as visualized in autoradiographs prepared from cerebellar tissues, was used to determine the time of final DNA synthesis in these cells. In the brains of animals malnourished in utero, the time of administration of the label which resulted in maximal retention and peak cerebellar neurogenesis had occurred as early as the 13th day of gestation.