Maternal administration of acetaminophen affects meiosis through its metabolite NAPQI targeting SIRT7 in fetal oocytes

Acetaminophen (APAP) is clinically recommended as analgesic and antipyretic among pregnant women. However, accumulating laboratory evidence shows that the use of APAP during pregnancy may alter fetal development. Since fetal stage is a susceptible window for early oogenesis, we aim to assess the potential effects of maternal administration of APAP on fetal oocytes. Maternal administration and the fetal ovary cultures showed that APAP (50 and 150 mg/kg.bw/day) caused meiotic aberrations in fetal oocytes through its metabolite NAPQI, including meiotic prophase I (MPI) progression delay and homologous recombination defects. Co-treatment with NAM or NRC, NAD+ supplements, efficiently restored the MPI arrest, while the addition of the inhibitor of SIRT7 invalidated the effect of the NAD+ supplement. Additionally, RNA sequencing revealed distorted transcriptomes of fetal ovaries treated with NAPQI. Further, the fecundity of female offspring was affected, exhibiting as delayed primordial folliculogenesis and puberty onset, reduced levels of ovarian hormones, and impaired developmental competence of MII oocytes. Short-term administration of APAP to pregnant mouse caused meiotic aberrations in fetal oocytes by its metabolite NAPQI, while co-treatment with NAD+ supplement efficiently relieves the adverse effects by interacting with SIRT7. Overall design: Ovaries at 14.5 dpc were treated with 15 µM NAPQI or ethyl acetate, and were collected after 3-days culture. Then total RNA was isolated. The library products were sequenced by Next-Generation Sequencing. In the case of all the samples 3 replicates were included. In order to identify up-, or down-regulated genes the treated samples were compared to the control samples.