[The effect on apoptosis in anterior pituitary induced by cadmium chloride and its relations with caspase-9 pathway].
OBJECTIVE
To study the effects of cadmium chloride in anterior pituitary and the relation between apoptosis and expression of procaspase-9 mRNA.


METHODS
In vivo studies:40 SD male rats were randomly distributed into four groups which were administered with CdCl2 at different doses by gavage for 6 weeks;


METHODS
the rats' anterior pituitary cells were primarily cultured for 120 hours, then treated with CdCl2 at the dose of 0, 1.56, 3.12, 6.25, 12.50, 25.00, 50.00, 100.00 micromol/L for 6 hours; The indices included: expression of procaspase-9 mRNA, detection of apoptosis with TUNEL assay.


RESULTS
The results showed the excretion of ACTH, LH seemed to be decreased dramatically and the apoptosis inclined to enhance remarkably, and further more, the expression of procaspase-9 mRNA appeared to be increased significantly as compared with those of the control. It was show that a dose-effect relationship between the CdCl2 dosing and indices above with the regression analysis and a linear correlation between the mean gray value of apoptosis cell and the relative gray value of procaspase-9 mRNA positive cell. The results indicated that damnification, for example, apoptosis could be caused by certain dose of CdCl2 in anterior pituitary cells with dose dependent manner. Caspase-9 might play a role in the occurrence of apoptosis.


CONCLUSIONS
It was suggested that cadmium could induce apoptosis of anterior pituitary both in vivo and in vitro in the manner of dose-dependent, and caspase-9 might play a role during above processes.
Zhu
Wei
W
Department of Preventive Medicine, The School of Health of Sun Yat-san University, Guangzhou 510080, China.
Yang
Xing-fen
XF
Wei
Qing
Q
Lin
Zhong-ning
ZN
Zheng
Shu-sheng
SS
Zhao
Min
M
D000818:Animals; D017209:Apoptosis / Q000187:drug effects*; D019256:Cadmium Chloride / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000633:toxicity*; D053453:Caspase 9 / Q000235:genetics*; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D008297:Male; D010903:Pituitary Gland, Anterior / Q000166:cytology / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000378:metabolism; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D011897:Random Allocation; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000187:drug effects
D012333:RNA, Messenger; D053453:Caspase 9; D019256:Cadmium Chloride