Morphological changes in the kidneys of rats' offspring in parents’ chronic intoxication by salts of heavy metals

In comparative aspect the effect of cadmium, nickel and zinc in “mother-fetus” system taking into account the migration of the specified elements in the links of food chain was studied. Under experi-mental conditions, the role of heavy metal intoxica-tion of parents in the development of pathological and morphological changes in the offspring was established. The researches were carried out on the outbred laboratory rats, based on analogs and divided into seven groups. The first one - rat does which receiving the forages grown when entering into the soil with cadmium salts in maximum con-centration limit dose; the second group - rats in a dose of 2 maximum concentration limits; the third and fourth groups were rat does, receiving vegeta-ble production grown up when entering into the soil of salts of nickel in a dose of maximum concentra-tion limit and 2 maximum concentration limits - re-spectively; - zinc salts in the dose of maximum concentration limit and 2 TLV respectively, the sev-enth group - control (intact pregnant rat does). Re-search methods were clinical, histological, statisti-cal. The indicators of physiological development of experimental infant rats for the first and second experimental groups were lower than the indicators of rats from the control group, they had a percepti-ble delay with the eyes opening and the appear-ance of hair at birth; additionally they had a signifi-cantly lower body weight than the control. It was noted that the offspring obtained from the rats of the third and fourth experimental groups had the lag in terms of detachment ears and eye opening for one day compared with the control group of rats. The body weight of young rats at birth was lower than of control animals, but in future it was signifi-cantly higher than the control indicators, and this tendency remained until the end of the experiment. The rats from the fifth and sixth test groups had the earlier appearance of hair and eyes opening, at birth they had the highest body weight, and this tendency remained until the end of the experiment. As a result of conducted studies, it was found out that the inclusion of plant products containing nickel and cadmium in the diet of pregnant and lactating rat stimulated the development of pathological changes in the kidneys of young rats, which were characterized by degenerative processes in epithe-lial cells of proximal convoluted tubules and lym-phocytic infiltrates.