Cholestatic liver injury in adult offspring induced by prenatal dexamethasone exposure

Under standard conditions, animals were housed in padded cages in an air-conditioned room and allowed free access to rat chow and tap water. All rats had adapted to the environment for a week before the experiments began. Two female rats were placed with one male rat overnight in a cage for mating. The appearance of sperm in the vaginal smears confirmed mating, and the day of mating was set as a gestational day 0.The PDE groups were subcutaneously injected with 0.2 mg/kg-d dexamethasone from GD9 to GD20, and the control groups were sham-treated with the same volume of saline.