Effects of the maternal acetazolamide treatment on incisor eruption of rat offspring

Abstract

Retarded incisor eruption of rat offspring caused by maternal drug treatment during pregnancy is generally thought to be a secondary effect of suppressed body weight. In this study we administered acetazolamide, a carbonic anhydrase inhibitor, to pregnant rats at doses of 0, 100, 200 and 400 mg/kg body weight twice a day from gestation day 7 to 11 at 12-h intervals to examine the relationship between retarded incisor eruption and body weight. In the 100×2 mg/kg per day group the body weights of the rat offspring increased normally, and their incisor eruption was not retarded. In the 400×2 mg/kg per day group both suppressed body weights and retarded incisor eruption were obvious. However, in the 200×2 mg/kg per day group, the incisor eruption was retarded despite the increase in body weight of the offspring being similar to those of the vehicle control group. The 50% achievement day of incisor eruption ratio was retarded by 0.7–1.0 days in the 200×2 mg/kg per day group and 0.9–1.4 days in the 400×2 mg/kg per day compared to that of the vehicle control group. The eruption ratio reached almost 100% in all acetazolamide groups at 13 days after birth. We therefore speculated that the retarded incisor eruption of rat offspring caused by the maternal acetazolamide treatment in this study might not be a secondary effects of the suppressed body weights of the offspring.