Assessment of the Possibility of Modulating the Effect of Prenatal Passive Tobacco Smoking on the Somatic and Sensorimotor Development of Wistar Rats in the Nesting Period

The influence of various environmental factors in the prenatal period can have a significant impact on the growth and development of the body. The study evaluated the effect of prenatal passive smoking on somatic and sensorimotor development in the nesting period of the offspring of Wistar rats. Possibility of prevention of these effects with the help of KK1 tetrapeptide possessing antihypoxic and antioxidant properties is evaluated. Method. The experiment was used 38 mature female Wistar rats and their offspring (329 rats) aged 0 to 21 days. The animals were divided into three observation groups. Passive smoking was simulated by fumigation of tobacco smoke. To test the offspring, a set of tests was used to assess the developing behavioral phenotype of rats, developed at the Institute of Normal Physiology P.K. Anokhin. The second group included included pups from litters of females who, starting from the 2nd week of pregnancy, was administered intranasally sodium chloride saline (0.2 mL) to assess the effect of the immunomodulator administration procedure. The third group included pups from litters of females who, starting from the 2nd week of pregnancy, were injected intranasally with saline (0.2 ml) containing tetrapeptide KK1 at a dose of 40 mg/kg. Results. The phenomenon of the negative effect of passive smoking during pregnancy on the formation of fetal weight, added earlier in the literature, has been confirmed in our work. Despite a significant slowdown in fetal development caused by prenatal smoking, the somatic development of newborns is not significantly transformed, as evidenced by the absence of a significant difference in ISR in the N1 and K1 subgroups. At the same time, we found that the gain of body weight in the late milk period of life in individuals subjected to the factor «prenatal passive tobacco smoking» is significantly ahead of this indicator in the control group. The negative influence of the factor «intranasal injection» as prenatal stress on the formation of fetal weight during the period of intrauterine development was revealed. Tetrapeptide KK1 has the ability to reduce the negative effect of the factor «prenatal passive tobacco smoking» on the prenatal formation of the body weight of newborn rats and their postnatal sensorimotor development.