Effect of intrauterine ischaemia-reperfusion injury on rat skin

It was previously demonstrated that decreased maternal blood flow might create impairment in skin development. The aim of this study was to show by means of lipid peroxidation the effect of intrauterine ischaemia-reperfusion injury on fetal rat skin.

In total, 24 female Spraque-Dawley rats, 19 days pregnant, were used. They were separated into three groups (n = 8): a control group, a sham-operated group and an experimental group. Laparotomy was performed on all three groups. In the sham-operated and experimental groups, utero-ovarian artery dissection was performed in addition. In the experimental group, fetal ischaemia was induced by clamping the utero-ovarian artery bilaterally for 30 min, and reperfusion was achieved by removing the clamps for 60 min. At the end of the experiment, the fetuses were removed by caesarean section and skin specimens were taken from the fetuses. Lipid peroxidation in the skin tissues was determined as thiobarbituric acid reactive substance (TBARS) concentration for each fetal rat. One-way ANOVA and post hoc tests were used for statistical analysis.

The level of TBARS was significantly increased in the fetal rat skin after ischaemia-reperfusion injury compared with the control group.

Lipid peroxidation has an important role in intrauterine ischaemia-reperfusion-induced fetal skin damage in rats.