The effect of prenatal stress on oxidative protein modification in the rat brain in ontogeny

Abstract

Oxidative protein modification (OPM) was studied in the striatum, hippocampus, and hypothalamus of rats of various ages that were subjected to prenatal stress. The basal level of spontaneous OPM products and the level of OPM products after induction by Fenton’s reagent were measured. The OPM processes in the structures we studied had similar features. Under normal conditions, a gradual increase in the content of OPM products was observed at days 10–30 of postnatal ontogeny and a decrease in this index was observed in adult animals. Additionally, some differences in the contents of OPM products were revealed in specific brain regions. In the animals that were subjected to prenatal stress, we found substantial differences in the time course of OPM in all brain regions studied. Thus, the level of OPM products in 10-day-old rats that were subjected to prenatal stress was substantially higher compared to that in the control rats. However, the indices of both spontaneous and induced OPM later decreased. Thus, impairments of OPM processes in the striatum, hypothalamus, and hippocampus may be a cause of changes in adaptive behavior, which were observed in adult rats that were subjected to prenatal stress.