A group of Russian scientists, together with European colleagues, studied the effect of the level of serotonin in the body of pregnant female rodents on the formation of the adrenal glands of future offspring.
As the authors of the work note, the results obtained may in the future help in the search for new methods of treating certain types of malignant tumors.
The study was conducted by scientists from the Institute of Developmental Biology named after N.K.
Koltsov RAS, National Medical Research Center for Endocrinology of the Ministry of Health of Russia, Research Institute of Pharmacology named after V.V.
Zakusov, Institute of Cytology RAS, Institute of Translational Biomedicine, First Moscow State Medical University named after I.M.
Sechenov, A.N.
Severtsov RAS in collaboration with the teams of the Karolinska Institute (Sweden), the Medical University of Vienna (Austria) and international scientific institutions in Germany, the Czech Republic, Italy and France
.
The study was supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation (RSF).
The results are published in the journal Nature Communications.
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As part of the experiments, pregnant laboratory rodents were injected with a substance that was converted in the animal body into the hormone serotonin.
This was done at the stage of embryo development, when it had differentiation (formation. -
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) chromaffin (endocrine. -
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) cells from progenitor cells (stem cells.
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)
These cells have receptors for the hormone serotonin.
The researchers were able to find out that the activation of serotonin receptors of embryonic cells by increasing the level of the hormone in the body of a pregnant female leads to a decrease in the volume of the adrenal medulla in the cubs.
Scientists have come to the conclusion that changes occur only if the level of serotonin reaches a certain threshold.
“Paracrine regulation (a type of hormone effect on a cell. -
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), dependent on the serotonin receptor HTR3A, ... acts as an important regulator of excessive growth of chromaffin tissues and pre-malignant changes,” the scientific article says.
As Elena Voronezhskaya, one of the authors of the article and project leader, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Head of the Laboratory for Comparative Developmental Physiology of the IBR RAS, explained in an interview with RT, the findings are also true for people, since scientists also studied human embryonic cells.
Elena Voronezhskaya, project manager under the RSF grant
© Press Service of the Russian Science Foundation
The expert explained that in a normal situation, progenitor cell division results in chromaffin cells.
However, in the event of a failure, cells begin to divide without stopping, resulting in a cancerous tumor.
Most often, this type of cancer occurs in children.
The researchers suggested that those tumors whose cells have receptors for serotonin can be combated by introducing this hormone.
As Elena Voronezhskaya noted, now scientists have hope that with the help of serotonin, one can learn to restrain the growth of certain types of tumors that arise during the development of the body.
"Prenatal Programming"
Scientists also studied how increased levels of serotonin in the body of pregnant rodents affect the behavior of future offspring.
The hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine, secreted by the adrenal glands in response to stress, help the animal quickly navigate in a dangerous situation and implement protective behavioral strategies.
Rodent embryos
© Press Service of the Russian Science Foundation
The researchers conducted experiments with genetically modified lines of animals that are unable to produce serotonin, and also studied the behavior of the cubs of females with an increased content of the "hormone of happiness" in the body.
It turned out that rodents with a small size of the adrenal medulla are less aggressive and anxious, while more inquisitive and friendly.
Another object of research was the wild voles of Siberia, which are characterized by waves of migration.
As it was established, it is the animals with reduced production of adrenaline and norepinephrine that ensure the migration of the species, the change of its range and the development of new territories.
“The serotonin we discovered, a mediated mechanism that regulates the number of adrenal chromaffin cells, reveals one of the possible ways of epigenetic, that is, due to external factors, the transfer of information from mother to cubs.
It provides a kind of prenatal programming of long-term changes in the behavior of offspring, which explains the emergence of various types of reactions to stress in the process of development, ”explained Victoria Melnikova, one of the co-authors of the study, senior researcher at the IBR RAS.