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Effects of Alcohol Exposure on Coronaries and Innervation of the Developing Heart

AJAS · 2019 Biomedical and Health Sciences (inferred)

Angela Zhu, Nikhita Kumar · and

Overview

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) can occur when a pregnant woman consumes alcohol. Prenatal alcohol consumption may cause abnormalities in the fetus including craniofacial, neurobehavioral and cardiac defects, which may result from aberrations in neural crest cell biology. We hypothesize that these altered neural crest cells may cause abnormalities to their derivatives, the cardiac innervation and coronaries. We used the quail embryo model because it is accessible, economical and develops a 4-chambered heart similar to the human heart. Quail eggs were injected with alcohol to mimic a session of binge drinking early in pregnancy. One set of control eggs was injected with phosphate buffered saline to see if injections alone cause abnormalities, while another set of controls remained uninjected. The eggs were incubated for eight or twelve days, times after which the hearts would normally form four chambers with coronary vasculature and autonomic innervation. To visualize the cardiac innervation and endothelial cells, surviving hearts were made permeable with detergent and immunostained with fluorescent antibodies. Neuron-specific tubulin (TUJ1) marked the innervation, and endothelial antibody (QH1) stained endothelial cells. Analysis of the abnormalities of the innervation was done by tracing each nerve and counting the ganglia on the surface of the heart. FIJI Image J, an image processing program, was used to quantify the branching of the nerves. Analysis of day 8 hearts showed no significant difference in the innervation branching, and analysis of day 12 hearts revealed no significant difference in the ganglia numbers. The lack of significant differences between ethanol and control hearts in innervation branching or ganglia numbers may be due to natural wide variation in nerve patterns, and thus more embryos are required for further analysis. Preliminary findings showed that splitting of the major nerve, the thoracic sympathetic cardiac branch, may differ between control and ethanol treated embryos, which will be analyzed in the future. Abnormalities of innervation may lead to abnormal regulation of autonomic control of heart function. Endothelial cell staining showed less staining for ethanol injected hearts and similar staining between no injection and PBS injection hearts. A new technique SLIME was used to fill and to analyze the coronary microvasculature and revealed that ethanol caused abnormal patterning of these vessels. These results imply that blood flow to the heart muscle cells may not be normal in ethanol injection hearts.

Competition history

  • AJAS 2019 Category not listed

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Source: AAAS Annual Meeting (Confex) / American Junior Academy of Science

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