Effects of Aspirin-Like Drugs on Mitogen-Stimulated DNA Synthesis of Lymphocytes from Pregnant Rats and Offspring

Dietary protein deficiency in pregnant mice and offspring

“…Our previous findings of an inhibition of mitogen-stimulated lymphocyte blastogenesis in pregnant rats fed a protein-deficient diet (Millis et al, 1988) are not consistent with our present findings of immune hypersensitivity in pregnant mice. The diets consisted of the same protein (casein) in both studies and the relative differences and percentage gains in body weights were similar.…”

“…However, the protein-deficient diet in the former studies was 32% of the control level compared to 50% of the control level in the present study. Thus, this apparent inconsistency may be explainable by the presumption that a 68% reduction in dietary protein in the prior study in pregnant rats (Millis et al, 1988) may have produced greater stress and corticosteroids (Watson et al, 1993) than a 32% reduction may have produced in the present study in pregnant mice. During lactation and after weaning, the offspring mice were fed diets containing normal protein content.…”

“…The present study was designed to test the hypothesis that exposure of pregnant mice and their offspring to dietary protein deficiency produces a predilection for preterm delivery and decreases parity by an immunological mechanism. A prior report from our laboratory has demonstrated decreased immune responsiveness based on decreased mitogen-stimulated proliferation of lymphocytes from pregnant rats fed a proteindeficient diet (Millis et al, 1988). In mice, dietary protein deficiency has been shown to increase mitogen-stimulated proliferation of lymphocytes (James et al, 1990;Deitch et al, 1992;Petro et al, 1994), graft versus host responses (Bell and Hazell, 1975;Fernandes et al, 1976), antibody production to sheep erythrocytes, cell-mediated "killer" immune responses to cancer cells (Fernandes et al, 1976) and growth hormone receptor expression on splenic B lymphocytes (Mejia-Naranjo and Sanchez-Gomez, 2004).…”