Oliver Ogbonna
Research Mentor(s): Pini Perera
Mentor Department: Environmental Health Sciences
Authors: Oliver Ogbonna, Justin Colacino, Dana Dolinoy, Bambarendage Perera
Session: Session 5 (2:00pm – 2:50pm)
Presentation Type: Poster 90
Abstract
Investigating the Impact of Lead (Pb) Exposure During Pregnancy in Mice The Flint lead (Pb) water crisis is one of the most devastating public health and environmental disasters in recent U.S. history. It began in April 2014, when Flint, Michigan, switched its water supply from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to the Flint River as a cost-cutting measure. Pb from improperly treated leached into the drinking water, exposing thousands of residents to dangerous levels of Pb, a potent neurotoxin. Pb exposure during pregnancy is linked to increasing rates of obesity. This study uses adult female mouse models (10-12 weeks old) to explore in-utero Pb exposure’s impacts during non-pregnancy, pregnancy, and postpartum. All animal groups underwent a control or a human-relevant dosage of Pb water at 32ppm, 2 weeks before mating. Non-pregnant and pregnant animals were sacrificed 2 weeks after mating, while the postpartum animals were exposed to Pb until 3 weeks after giving birth. Afterward, the postpartum animals were monitored for 2 weeks without Pb exposure. The physiological implications regarding Pb exposure displayed non-pregnant mouse models for both control and Pb to have similarly average body weights(g) (20.94 and 21.56 respectively: p-value not significant). We continue to see this trend with postpartum models for both control and Pb groups (24.92 and 25.88 respectively: p-value not significant). However, for pregnant animals, the average body weight is significantly higher in Pb compared to the control (29.01 and 27.23 respectively: p-value 0.039). Using RNA-seq data, with sample sizes from 6-10 for each group, we plan to specifically identify the genes contributing to such phenotypic changes for Pb exposure during pregnancy. Exploring this research has public health implications regarding Pb exposure impact and physiological effects, offering scientific insights to bring awareness of future health risks.
