Effects of chronic carbon monoxide exposure on fetal growth and development in mice

BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth

Research Article

Richard Casselman¹  Carolina C Venditti¹  Graeme N Smith² 

[1] Biomedical and Molecular Sciences, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada;Biomedical and Molecular Sciences, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada;Obstetrics and Gynecology, Kingston General Hospital, Kingston, ON, Canada;

关键词: Litter Size;    Fetal Weight;    Placental Weight;    COHb Level;    Fetal Birth Weight;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2393-11-101

 received in 2011-10-03, accepted in 2011-12-14,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundCarbon monoxide (CO) is produced endogenously, and can also be acquired from many exogenous sources: ie. cigarette smoking, automobile exhaust. Although toxic at high levels, low level production or exposure lends to normal physiologic functions: smooth muscle cell relaxation, control of vascular tone, platelet aggregation, anti- inflammatory and anti-apoptotic events. In pregnancy, it is unclear at what level maternal CO exposure becomes toxic to the fetus. In this study, we hypothesized that CO would be embryotoxic, and we sought to determine at what level of chronic CO exposure in pregnancy embryo/fetotoxic effects are observed.MethodsPregnant CD1 mice were exposed to continuous levels of CO (0 to 400 ppm) from conception to gestation day 17. The effect on fetal/placental growth and development, and fetal/maternal CO concentrations were determined.ResultsMaternal and fetal CO blood concentrations ranged from 1.12- 15.6 percent carboxyhemoglobin (%COHb) and 1.0- 28.6%COHb, respectively. No significant difference was observed in placental histological morphology or in placental mass with any CO exposure. At 400 ppm CO vs. control, decreased litter size and fetal mass (p < 0.05), increased fetal early/late gestational deaths (p < 0.05), and increased CO content in the placenta and the maternal spleen, heart, liver, kidney and lung (p < 0.05) were observed.ConclusionsExposure to levels at or below 300 ppm CO throughout pregnancy has little demonstrable effect on fetal growth and development in the mouse.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Venditti et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.