Congenital cardiovascular malformations are the leading cause of neonatal and infant death and a major cause of adult cardiac insufficiency. Valvular stenosis and hypoplastic left heart syndrome are the most common malformations occurring in eight out of 1000 live births and constituting 25-30% of all cases of human cardiovascular malformations. There is a critical need to understand the mechanisms that cause these diseases. Our long-term goal is to identify the mechanisms and causes of these cardiac diseases and to develop tools to prevent their incidence. The objective of these studies is to determine whether an association between genetic and environmental factors is the ultimate cause responsible for disease incidence. Our central hypothesis is that prenatal exposure of mice to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD;dioxin), an organochlorinated environmental pollutant, mediates the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR)-dependent repression of the homeobox transcription factor NKX2.5, a key determinant of cardiac morphogenesis. Our rationale is that mutations in the NKX2.5 gene and maternal exposure to halogenated hydrocarbons, dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls during pregnancy are the main known risk factors for these human developmental cardiac malformations. Key in this context is our finding that AHR represses NKX2.5 expression. Completion of our specific aims will achieve the following short-term goals: (1), to characterize the AHR role in cardiovascular development and NKX2.5 regulation;(2), to identify regulatory gene expression changes during cardiovascular development that result from TCDD exposure;(3) to determine if TCDD exposure during embryonic development causes long-lasting cardiovascular malformations.
These aims test the working hypothesis that organochlorinated environmental agents disrupt AHR-regulated functions during cardiac embryonic development and cause long-lasting cardiovascular injury. We will use promoter-mediated selection methods to model the gene-environment interactions established between NKX2.5, AHR and dioxin exposure and use global gene expression analyses and chromatin immunoprecipitation to identify genetic and epigenetic signatures characteristic of TCDD effects during differentiation. We will probe tissues of newborn and adult mice exposed to TCDD in utero for the expression of target gene clusters, epigenetic changes and incidence of cardiac malformations. The significance of this work lies on the identification of the molecular mechanisms by which AHR and TCDD exert their cardiac effects, providing a test of the causal connections between AHR, dioxin and cardiovascular disease. The novel approach that we propose will define a path applicable to many similar studies of other environmental agents. Our work is innovative because it proposes to use a combination of molecular tools and ES cell research never before employed in the study of the mechanisms of action of environmental agents. We expect to establish a strong mechanistic link between TCDD exposure, the genes that the AHR activates and cardiac malformations.

Public Health Relevance

The exposure of human populations to aryl hydrocarbon receptor organochlorinated ligands has been associated with a number of disease outcomes, including cancer, chloracne, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, endometriosis, neurocognitive deficits, immunotoxicity and especially, cardiac developmental abnormalities. Two central questions that need to be addressed in this context are, (i), what are the mechanisms responsible for the causation of these diseases, and (ii) what are the long-term health consequences of developmental exposure on the susceptibility to environmental disease in the adult. By focusing this renewal application on the potential consequences of fetal exposure on congenital cardiac malformations and incidence of adult disease, we will address these two most critical issues of environmental health research today.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01ES006273-18
Application #
8610919
Study Section
Xenobiotic and Nutrient Disposition and Action Study Section (XNDA)
Program Officer
Chadwick, Lisa
Project Start
1993-09-30
Project End
2016-01-31
Budget Start
2014-02-01
Budget End
2015-01-31
Support Year
18
Fiscal Year
2014
Total Cost
$423,768
Indirect Cost
$153,852
Name
University of Cincinnati
Department
Public Health & Prev Medicine
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
041064767
City
Cincinnati
State
OH
Country
United States
Zip Code
45221
Ko, Chia-I; Puga, Alvaro (2017) Does the Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor Regulate Pluripotency? Curr Opin Toxicol 2:1-7
Wang, Qin; Kurita, Hisaka; Carreira, Vinicius et al. (2016) Ah Receptor Activation by Dioxin Disrupts Activin, BMP, and WNT Signals During the Early Differentiation of Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells and Inhibits Cardiomyocyte Functions. Toxicol Sci 149:346-57
Kurita, Hisaka; Carreira, Vinicius S; Fan, Yunxia et al. (2016) Ah receptor expression in cardiomyocytes protects adult female mice from heart dysfunction induced by TCDD exposure. Toxicology 355-356:9-20
Ko, Chia-I; Fan, Yunxia; de Gannes, Matthew et al. (2016) Repression of the Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor Is Required to Maintain Mitotic Progression and Prevent Loss of Pluripotency of Embryonic Stem Cells. Stem Cells 34:2825-2839
Sánchez-Martín, Francisco Javier; Fan, Yunxia; Carreira, Vinicius et al. (2015) Long-term Coexposure to Hexavalent Chromium and B[a]P Causes Tissue-Specific Differential Biological Effects in Liver and Gastrointestinal Tract of Mice. Toxicol Sci 146:52-64
Carreira, Vinicius S; Fan, Yunxia; Wang, Qing et al. (2015) Ah Receptor Signaling Controls the Expression of Cardiac Development and Homeostasis Genes. Toxicol Sci 147:425-35
Mongan, Maureen; Meng, Qinghang; Wang, Jingjing et al. (2015) Gene-Environment Interactions Target Mitogen-activated Protein 3 Kinase 1 (MAP3K1) Signaling in Eyelid Morphogenesis. J Biol Chem 290:19770-9
Carreira, Vinicius S; Fan, Yunxia; Kurita, Hisaka et al. (2015) Disruption of Ah Receptor Signaling during Mouse Development Leads to Abnormal Cardiac Structure and Function in the Adult. PLoS One 10:e0142440
Winans, Bethany; Nagari, Anusha; Chae, Minho et al. (2015) Linking the aryl hydrocarbon receptor with altered DNA methylation patterns and developmentally induced aberrant antiviral CD8+ T cell responses. J Immunol 194:4446-57
Kurita, Hisaka; Schnekenburger, Michael; Ovesen, Jerald L et al. (2014) The Ah receptor recruits IKK? to its target binding motifs to phosphorylate serine-10 in histone H3 required for transcriptional activation. Toxicol Sci 139:121-32

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