Pinealon protects the rat offspring from prenatal hyperhomocysteinemia.

The offspring of rats with experimental hyperhomocysteinemia caused by alimentary loading with dietary methionine within pregnancy has been studied. Using pinealon (Glu-Asp-Arg) under these conditions was found to result in the offspring cognitive function being improved significantly and their cerebellum neurons becoming more resistant to oxidative stress. This may be proved by the fact that the administration of pinealon to pregnant rats loaded with methionine improved their offspring spatial orientation and learning ability and decreased both reactive oxygen species accumulation and the number of necrotic cells in the population of the neurons isolated from the cerebellum of the offspring developed under the prenatal hyperhomocysteinemia. Our experiments allowed confirming the neuroprotective properties of pinealon, which is in agreement with the previous data obtained by us in vitro.