Nicotine exposure of male mice protects offspring against carbon tetrachloride‐induced acute liver injury

Abstract

Paternal nicotine exposure can cause a phenotypic change in offspring. To study whether paternal nicotine exposure influences acute liver injury and repair of the offspring, we established a paternal nicotine exposure model in mice and treated the offspring mice with carbon tetrachloride (CCl 4 ) to induce acute liver injury. After the treatment of CCl 4 , the levels of alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase in offspring serum of paternal nicotine exposed mice are about 37.44%, and 30.21% lower than the control mice, respectively. Transcription profiling screen and bioinformatics analysis of differently expressed genes in F1 mice liver revealed that the Wnt pathway was altered. The results demonstrate that nicotine exposure in male mice could enhance the activation of the Wnt pathway in F1 mice liver. The Wnt pathway facilitates cell proliferation and tissue repair. In conclusion, our findings showed that nicotine exposure of male mice protects hepatic against CCl 4 -induced acute injury in offspring by activating the Wnt pathway in the F1 liver.

Effect of nicotine on cholesterol gallstone formation in C57BL/6J mice fed on a lithogenic diet

“…A longer study period would have allowed for potentially increased differences in liver damage levels. By contrast, several studies suggest that chronic nicotine treatment has no significant effect on the liver (32) and even alleviates poison-induced liver injury (33)(34)(35). The inconsistency of these findings may be due to differences in the concentration, duration of nicotine treatment and the types of substances that induce liver injury.…”