SOME EFFECTS OF A MATERNAL RIBOFLAVIN DEFICIENCY ON REPRODUCTION IN THE RAT

Abstract

Ten female albino rats were fed a purified riboflavin deficient diet for periods of 17 to 28 days before breeding and throughout pregnancy. Vaginal smears were taken daily throughout this period, and food consumption and weight gains were recorded. All animals were sacrificed 21 days after breeding and examined for viable young, fetal remnants, implantation sites, and corpora lutea. Living young were examined both macroscopically and by the alizarin red S technique for ossification centers. Five of these females produced 24 viable fetuses, of which two showed skeletal anomalies, one was oedematous, and the remainder exhibited a significant weight reduction. An average of 62.5% of the embryos in these litters were undergoing resorption. The remaining five deficient mothers exhibited 100% resorptions. Nine control females, treated similarly to the above except for the addition of riboflavin to their diet, had an average of 10 living fetuses and 14.1% resorptions per litter with no abnormals. The erythrocyte sign ranged from complete absence in controls with no resorbing fetuses to a duration of up to six days in some depleted animals, with a correlation of +0.84 between duration and percentage of resorptions.