Folic acid administration reduced selenite- induced abnormalities in the egg- cylinder of pregnant rat

Abstract

The present study was undertaken to evaluate the efficacy of folic acid in preventing selenium provoked alterations in early embryonic development. Pregnant rats were divided into four groups; control group, folic acid (FA) treated group (0.7 mg/kg b.wt.), sodium selenite (Se) treated group with 5 μg/ kg b.wt. and co-treated group with Se and FA at the same dosages. Dams were treated daily from gestational day zero to day 7 by gastric intubation. All animals were sacrificed on the eighth day of gestation at 10 a.m. Sodium selenite resulted in loss of maternal body weight, decrease in number of pregnant rats and relatively increase in number of pre-implantation loss. Also, sodium selenite caused retardation of the embryonic development as well as increase in the number of deformed, degenerated and aborted embryos. Folic acid supplementation reduced selenite- induced developmental abnormalities.