{"doi":"10.1165/rcmb.2020-0036oc","title":"Prenatal Exposure to Electronic-Cigarette Aerosols Leads to Sex-Dependent Pulmonary Extracellular-Matrix Remodeling and Myogenesis in Offspring Mice","abstract":"Electronic-cigarette (e-cig) vaping is a serious concern, as many pregnant women who vape consider it safe. However, little is known about the harmful effects of prenatal e-cig exposure on adult offspring, especially on extracellular-matrix (ECM) deposition and myogenesis in the lungs of offspring. We evaluated the biochemical and molecular implications of maternal exposure during pregnancy to e-cig aerosols on the adult offspring of both sexes, with a particular focus on pulmonary ECM remodeling and myogenesis. Pregnant CD-1 mice were exposed to e-cig aerosols with or without nicotine, throughout gestation, and lungs were collected from adult male and female offspring. Compared with the air-exposed control group, female mice exposed to e-cig aerosols, with or without nicotine, demonstrated increased lung protein abundance of LEF-1 (lymphoid enhancer-binding factor 1), fibronectin, and E-cadherin, whereas altered E-cadherin and PPARγ (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ) levels were observed only in males exposed to e-cig aerosols with nicotine. Moreover, lipogenic and myogenic mRNAs were dysregulated in adult offspring in a sex-dependent manner. PAI-1 (plasminogen activator inhibitor-1), one of the ECM regulators, was significantly increased in females exposed prenatally to e-cig aerosols with nicotine and in males exposed to e-cig aerosols compared with control animals exposed to air. MMP9 (matrix metalloproteinase 9), a downstream target of PAI-1, was downregulated in both sexes exposed to e-cig aerosols with nicotine. No differences in lung histology were observed among any of the treatment groups. Overall, adult mice exposed prenatally to e-cig aerosols could be predisposed to developing pulmonary disease later in life. Thus, these findings suggest that vaping during pregnancy is unsafe and increases the propensity for later-life interstitial lung diseases.","journal":"American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology","year":2020,"id":94920,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":37,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9604,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":278343,"name":"Isaac K. Sundar","orcid":"0000-0001-6742-3460","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":472054,"name":"Jason L. Blum","orcid":"0000-0003-1381-6802","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":472601,"name":"Jill R. Ratner","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":280117,"name":"Joseph H. Lucas","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":368973,"name":"Tsai‐Der Chuang","orcid":"0000-0003-1195-7054","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":472055,"name":"Ying Wang","orcid":"0000-0003-4757-1364","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":325050,"name":"Jie Liu","orcid":"0000-0002-4530-1443","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":337039,"name":"Virender K. Rehan","orcid":"0000-0002-8948-8967","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":472056,"name":"Judith T. Zelikoff","orcid":"0000-0002-4547-2218","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":275207,"name":"Irfan Rahman","orcid":"0000-0003-2274-2454","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":278342,"name":"Qixin Wang","orcid":"0000-0001-9051-8388","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":50,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T22:33:00.770265Z","pmid":"32853043","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}