Date on Senior Honors Thesis

5-2023

Document Type

Senior Honors Thesis

Degree Name

B.S.

Department

Biology

Author's Keywords

prenatal; inhalation; histology; mice; kidney; electronic cigarette

Abstract

A variety of nicotine-containing products have been making their way to the market as alternatives to cigarette smoking. These include, but are not limited to, cigars, pipes, smokeless tobacco, and electronic cigarettes, with the last one being more prevalent than the others. With these alternatives, there are more tobacco users now than ever, with an increase from 1990 to 2017, which contrasts with the reduction in number of smokers observed by the Surgeon General in his Smoking Cessation report between 1990 and 2017, meaning that more and more tobacco users are using these. Pregnant women are advised to switch from cigarettes to electronic cigarettes to reduce the toxic effects on the fetus, however little research has been done on the impact of vaping on child development. In this study investigating the impact of inhalation exposure to a commercial product on reproductive and developmental functions, C57BL/6 dams were exposed to vapor from VuseTM e-cigarette golden tobacco pod for 3 hours/day at two puffs per minute throughout gestation (Vape) or to filtered air (Sham). This resulted in smaller litter sizes, along with greater weights for Vape offspring at birth that returned to average by weaning. At weaning, the female offspring possessed proportionally larger kidneys compared to male. The relative mass of the kidney was lower in Vape female offspring compared to Sham female offspring. Histological analysis on the kidney found a non-statistically significant trend of an interaction between sex and exposure, with a reduction in density of glomeruli and of glomerular area to cortex area ratio only seen in males. In conclusion, there was a significant alteration in the size of the kidney in female pups, and a trend of interaction between sex and exposure resulted in a reduction in the density of the glomeruli in Vape males.

Lay Summary

A variety of nicotine-containing products have been making their way to the market as alternatives to cigarette smoking. These include, but are not limited to, cigars, pipes, smokeless tobacco, and electronic cigarettes, with the last one being the most commonly used indirect form of tobacco consumption. There are more tobacco users now than ever, which contrasts with the reduction in smoking observed by the Surgeon General in his Smoking Cessation report. Pregnant women are advised to switch from cigarettes to electronic cigarettes to reduce the toxic effects on the fetus, with 71% of women using this alternative claiming on doing so. However, when looking at the available literature, little research has been done on the impact of vaping on offspring development. In this study exploring the impact of e-cigarette consumption during gestation, pregnant mice were exposed to vapor generated from VuseTM Alto Golden Tobacco pods containing nicotine (Vape) or to filtered air (Sham). The number of Vape offspring born per litter was lower than, and their weight was greater than, the Sham offspring. When investigating the relative size of the kidney, female offspring had greater relative kidney mass than males, while female Vape offspring possessed smaller relative kidney mass. When investigating the kidney morphology, a trend of sex and exposure interaction appeared, meaning that both sex and exposure to vaping interacted. Thus, gestational e-cigarette exposure has altered the kidney in both male and female offspring and further investigation is required.

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