Acute Kidney Injury during pregnancy decreases pup size and sensorimotor development

BACKGROUND Acute kidney injury during pregnancy (NP+AKI) leads to growth restriction and a delay in neurodevelopment in the resulting babies. As the incidence of AKI during pregnancy has been increasing over the last few years it is important to examine the consequences of this disorder during pregnancy. We hypothesize that similar to what is seen in humans with intrauterine growth restriction, there will be a sex difference in sensorimotor development between NP and NP+AKI rat pups. METHODS To induce AKI, on gestational day (GD) 18, normal pregnant (NP) rats (n=4) had their renal pedicles isolated and occluded with microvascular clamps for 45 minutes under anesthesia. NP control rats (n=4) that received no surgical interventions served as controls and all rats delivered on GD21. 2–3 pups/litter were placed with a separate set of SHAM rats. Beginning on postnatal day (PND) 4 rat pups underwent the standard Irwin battery of developmental milestones: Surface righting, negative geotaxis, cliff avoidance, open circle. All pups were sexed and euthanized between PND32‐35. RESULTS Rat pups born to NP+AKI dams weighed significantly less compared to NP pups (p<0.0001). AKI pups were significantly smaller compared to NP pups (p<0.0001). This trend remained true for female AKI pups through PND9 (p<0.05); after which time both NP and NP+AKI females were significantly smaller than male pups. On PND3 NP+AKI females took longer to complete surface righting (23.5±12.7sec) compared to rat pups in the groups. Similar results were seen in cliff avoidance between groups (30.5±16.5 vs. 48.7±11.3sec; respectively). On PND5 NP+AKI pups (55.7±4.3sec) take longer to complete the negative geotaxis task compared to NP pups (17±1sec). There was a statistically significant difference in kidney size between female and male NP rats (p=0.02). There was not a statistically significant sex differences between groups in brain size (p=0.06), however NP+AKI pups had significantly smaller brains compared to NP pups (p=0.03). CONCLUSION NP+AKI pups are smaller compared to NP pups and have delays in surface righting. AKI during pregnancy did not affect kidney size in offspring, however both male and female NP+AKI pups had smaller brains more than 30 days post‐birth compared to NP pups. The results from this study suggest that AKI during pregnancy leads to a significant delay in growth and sensorimotor development. Support or Funding Information Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute Of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number P20GM121334. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .