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The Influence of a Low Lipotrope Diet on Response of Maternal and Fetal Rats to Lasiocarpine^{1 ,2}

Department of Nutrition and Food Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

Lasiocarpine has been administered intragastrically to pregnant rats maintained on control and on lipotrope-deficient diets during gestation. Effects of the toxin on the maternal liver have been noted as well as the transplacental effects on the newborn rat at birth and at seven weeks postpartum. A schedule of treatment was achieved which resulted in no detectable morphologic alterations in the maternal liver but caused fetal liver necrosis. The low lipotrope diet enhanced the effects of lasiocarpine on both maternal and fetal liver. Exposure to the toxin in utero resulted in significant liver lesions in seven-week-old rats with most severe changes observed in offspring littered to females fed the low lipotrope diet.

¹ This study was supported in part by NIH Research Grants ES-00183 and CA-00870.

² This manuscript is Contribution No. 1300 from the Department of Nutrition and Food Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.