The problem of environmental pollution remains acute at the moment and continues to deteriorate. An important part of this problem is pollution by heavy metals like lead, cadmium and mercury. The maximum permissible concentration of cadmium in air, food and water exceeds the norm overseas and in some regions of our country. The development of nanotechnologies is very fast, and toxicological studies do not have time to answer the urgent questions about the safety of new forms of cadmium for the adult population, and, most importantly, for the body at the stage of prenatal ontogenesis. Toxic effects of cadmium depend on many factors. We should pay a close attention to the following factors: the dose entering the body, the route of exposure, the duration of exposure, the form of the cadmium-containing compound, the period of the organism development. The purpose of this study was to experimentally determine the effects of low doses of cadmium chloride and cadmium citrate on the overall course of embryogenesis of rats during intragastric administration throughout the entire period of pregnancy. Material and methods. Determination of the potential embryotoxic effect of cadmium chloride and cadmium citrate was performed by evaluating and comparing the standard indices of embryonic development: average number of fetuses, total embryonic mortality, preimplantation embryonic mortality and post-implantation embryonic mortality. The determinations were made on the 13th and 20th day of embryogenesis. Young female rats of the Wistar line weighing 170-200 g were used for experimental studies. Experimental animals were divided into 3 groups (control, a group of cadmium chloride, a group of cadmium citrate). From the first to the nineteenth day of pregnancy, the pregnant rats received a saline, or cadmium chloride, or cadmium citrate according to the group. Results and discussion. On the 13th and 19th day of pregnancy, the female animals were slaughtered under thiopental anesthesia. The fetuses were weighed and fixed in 10% formalin solution for further morphometric studies. We calculated the number of resorptions, live and dead fetuses in each horn of the uterus and corpora lutea in the ovaries of the respective side. The obtained data showed the marked embryotoxic effect of cadmium chloride in a dose of 1 mg / kg, which manifested by significant changes in the following indices in pregnant rats: a decrease in the number of live fetuses per female, an increase in total embryonic mortality due to preimplantation mortality of embryos in rats. Although in the cadmium citrate group, the indicator of the number of live fetuses did not significantly differ from the control group, the overall embryonic mortality rate was 2.3 times higher (p <0.05) than in the control group due to the growth of preimplantation mortality at an average of 6.85 times (p <0.05).

Keywords: embryogenesis, embryonic mortality, cadmium chloride, cadmium citrate, experiment

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