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Morphometry of the kidney in rat pups from uninephrectomized mothers
T Okada1, T Yamagishi, Y Morikawa
1Department of Veterinary Anatomy, College of Agriculture, University of Osaka Prefecture, Japan.
Background:
The present study was designed to explore whether maternal renal dysfunction affects fetal kidney development and if the effects are lasting during the postnatal development.
Methods:
Kidneys of 1-day-old and 6-week-old pups from mothers which were uninephrectomized on day 5 of gestation were studied.
Results:
One day after birth, both the number of immature glomeruli and average volume of mature glomeruli of the neonates from uninephrectomized mothers were significantly larger than those from sham-operated mothers. Six weeks after birth, no significant differences in parameters of the kidney were observed between the pups from uninephrectomized and those from sham-operated mothers. Furthermore, blood urea nitrogen (BUN) concentration in adult female rats was determined at various days after uninephrectomy. BUN concentration in uninephrectomized rats was significantly higher than that in sham-operated ones.
Conclusions:
These results suggest that the fetal kidney development is accelerated by the elevated BUN level following maternal uninephrectomy and that the renotropic activity does not last during the postnatal developmental period.