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The Timing of Weaning in Rats Has a Long‐Lasting Impact on the Vulnerability to Stress‐Induced Gastric Erosion in Both Sexes
Author(s) -
Filaretova Ludmila,
Vataeva Ludmila,
Zelena Dora
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.31.1_supplement.989.3
Subject(s) - weaning , corticosterone , offspring , physiology , stomach , chronic stress , medicine , maternal deprivation , zoology , endocrinology , biology , pregnancy , hormone , genetics
Weaning is actually a maternal separation, characterized by maternal reduction of resources, therefore is both psychologically and energetically stressful to the offspring. Weaning is an important period of life and its timing may influence the resilence for later stress. One of the most important stress‐related disorder is gastric ulceration. Weaning is actually a maternal separation, characterized by maternal reduction of resources, therefore is both psychologically and energetically stressful to the offspring. Therefore we aimed to investigate the sensitivity of gastric mucosa to cold (at 14°C) water immersion stress (WIS for 3h) in adult (75‐day‐old) female and male rats after weaning them at different timepoints (at 17, 21, 30, 36 or 42 postnatal days). The connection with stress was studied by comparing control groups to those underwent WIS at the time of weaning and measuring corticosterone levels at the time of collecting the stomach samples. The timing of weaning has strong impact on all studied parameters. Stress‐induced erosion development was the smallest in rats weaned at 36‐day independently from preconditioning with WIS at weaning, or sex, despite a clear sex‐effect on blood corticosterone levels and body weight. WIS at weaning influenced only the body weight in adult rats weaned at 30‐day, being higher in stressed than in control groups. Erosion area significantly correlated with blood corticosterone level at weaning non‐stressed females. Taken together our results confirm that the timing of weaning has long‐lasting impact on the resiliance of gastric mucosa to ulcerogenic stressful events. The postnatal day 30–36 seems to be the optimal for weaning as both earlier and later weaning increased vulnerability. In conclusion, in contrast to the general practice, weaning at the postnatal day 30–36 would be optimal for rats leading to maximal mucosal resistance. Additional stress at weaning does not make too much difference. Support or Funding Information The study was supported by grant of Russian Science Foundation (RSF) №14‐15‐00790. (Filaretova L.: who was responsible for general experimental design, performing experiments in adult rats and analysis of the results).