Effect of prenatal exposure to nicotine on kidney structure and gene expression in rats

Here, we investigated whether prenatal exposure to nicotine alters kidney glomerular mass and genome-wide gene expression profiles in two genetically distant strains of rats, namely spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and Brown Norway (BN) rats. Nicotine or saline were administered to BN and SHR dams via osmotic pumps throughout gestation. Kidneys from 9-week-old male offspring were studied. Equal amounts of RNA from individual animals were pooled within each of the four experimental groups SHR (nicotine: n=13; saline: n=12) and BN (nicotine: n=12; saline: n=12) and hybridized with the Rat RAE-230a GeneChip (Affymetrix).