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Maternal Nicotine Exposure Leads To Decreased Cardiac Protein Disulfide Isomerase And Impaired Mitochondrial Function In Male Rat Offspring., Nicole G Barra, Maria Lisyansky, Taylor A Vanduzer, Sandeep Raha, Alison C Holloway, Daniel B Hardy

Physiology and Pharmacology Publications

Smoking throughout pregnancy can lead to complications during gestation, parturition and neonatal development. Thus, nicotine replacement therapies are a popular alternative thought to be safer than cigarettes. However, recent studies in rodents suggest that fetal and neonatal nicotine exposure alone results in cardiac dysfunction and high blood pressure. While it is well known that perinatal nicotine exposure causes increased congenital abnormalities, the mechanisms underlying longer-term deficits in cardiac function are not completely understood. Recently, our laboratory demonstrated that nicotine impairs placental protein disulfide isomerase (PDI) triggering an increase in endoplasmic reticulum stress, leading us to hypothesize that this may also …