Maternal Bisphenol A effect on fetal heart and skeletal muscle gene expression

Compairsion of transcriptional profiles of heart and skeletal muscle tissue of fetal rhesus monkey exposed to maternal Bisphenol A or vehicle during early or late gestaion. Maternal exposure to the endocrine disrupting chemical, bisphenol A (BPA) affects the development of multiple organ systems in rodents and monkeys. However, effects of BPA exposure on cardiac and skeletal muscle development have not been assessed. Given that maternal BPA crosses placenta and reaches developing fetus, examining the physiological consequences of gestational exposure during development is of research significance. Therefore, we evaluate the effects of daily, oral BPA exposure of pregnant rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) on the fetal heart and skeletal muscle transcriptome. Pregnant monkeys were administered daily oral doses (400 µg/kg body weight) of BPA during early (50 –100 ± 2 days post conception, dpc) or late (100 ± 2 dpc - term), gestation. At the end of treatment, fetal heart tissues; left ventricle (LV), right ventricle (RV), left atrium (LA), right atrium (RA) and skeletal muscle; biceps femoris (BFM), were collected. Transcriptome expression was assessed using genome-wide microarray in each of the tissues and compared paired-wise between the BPA and matched control fetuses. Our results show that maternal BPA exposure alters transcriptional profile of several coding and non-coding genes in fetal heart and skeletal muscle. Pregnant rhesus monkey were administered a daily oral dose of 400 μg/kg. body weight of Bisphenol A (BPA) or vehicle (CON) either during early (50–100 ± 2 days) or late (100 ± 2 days–term) gestation. Gene expression profiles of each of the heart chambers (left ventricle, LV; right ventricle, RV; left atrium, LA; and right atrium, RA) and skeletal muscle (biceps femoris, BFM) were analyzed using microarrays and compared between the BPA exposed and matched control fetuses. A total of 12 samples were analyzed for each tissue; LV, RV, LA, RA and BFM. This includes 6 samples at each time period (early vs. late gestation) and 3 biological replicates for each treatment (BPA, n=3; control, n=3).