Apoptotic Death of Cerebellar Neurons in Primary Culture Prepared from Neonatal Rats Exposed to Methylmercury in Utero

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A single dose of methylmercury at 10 or 15 mg Hg/kg body weight (p.o.) does not have an apparent adverse effect on adult rats. However, when primary cerebellar cells were prepared from neonatal rats exposed to methylmercury in utero by administering methylmercury to pregnant rats on day 18 of gestation, cerebellar neurons died after a certain lag time with morphological changes characteristic to apoptosis : formation of apoptotic vesicles, disappearance of neurites and condensation of nuclear chromatin and internucleosomal cleavage of chromatin DNA. The apoptotic death of cerebellar neurons required diffusible factor (s) released from the methylmercury-loaded cells, which can also induce the death of cerebellar neurons from control animals. Cerebellar weight gain during the 10 d after birth was also retarded by the prenatal exposure to methylmercury. These results indicate that prenatal exposure to methylmercury at maternal doses which do not induce apparent abnormality in adult rats brings about an accumulation of methylmercury in cerebellar neurons sufficient to induce apoptotic death of those cells, which may be a cause of retardation of cerebellar development during early postnatal stage.
公益社団法人日本薬学会の論文
1996-10-31