The effects of early maternal separation on gastric mucosa maturation and stress response (LB739)

Repeated maternal separation (MS) is a potent and chronic stressor that activates the HPA axis response. We demonstrated that few hours of fasting elevate plasma corticosterone (CORT) in pups, but it also increases CBG binding and reduces glucocorticoid receptor (GR) intracellular traffic in the gastric epithelium. In the stomach, complete cell differentiation occurs by the third postnatal week, in parallel with plasma CORT augment. However, it is not clear how CORT and maternal separation affect gastric epithelium growth and maturation. Currently, our aims were to evaluate: the impacts of MS on body weight; total CORT plasma levels by RIA; gr expression, and the consequences on rat gastric mucosa cell differentiation through the evaluation of developmental target genes by qPCR. For this purpose we used 10, 14, 18, 21 and 30- day- old rats divided into two groups: 1) Maternal separated group (MS) in which pups were removed from their dams and placed in a clean cage (32° C) for 3 h/day (from postnatal day ...