Figure 5.

Suppression of corticosterone levels in fetal liver following dexamethasone treatment. Dexamethasone (Dex, stippled bars: 100 µg/kg/day) or vehicle (Veh, white bars) was administered to pregnant dams from E12.5 to E15.5, with no further treatment to E17.5. Steroids were measured in fetal livers pooled from each litter (approximately 100 mg tissue), by mass spectrometry. The upper and lower limits of detection of both corticosterone and 11-dehydrocorticosterone (11-DHC) was 0.05–10 ng. Levels of (A) corticosterone at E15.5, (B) 11-DHC at E15.5, (C) corticosterone at E17.5 and (D) 11-DHC at E17.5. Values are expressed as ng steroid/g fetal liver with each data point representing a single pool of fetal livers from one litter. Data are means ± s.e.m. and were analysed by unpaired Student’s t-test; **P < 0.01, n = 4–6.