Intrauterine Exposure to E-cigarette Aerosol Alters Offspring Cardiac Function

The prevalence of pregnant women using electronic cigarettes (ECs), or vaping, has been estimated to be as high as 7%. Analysis of EC aerosols has uncovered the presence of free radicals, aldehydes, acrylamide, and metals; thus, EC use is likely not harmless. Despite this, we currently have a limited understanding of the health implications, especially during gestation, from EC aerosol exposure. As in utero exposure to other inhalants such as cigarette smoke or airborne particulate matter has been demonstrated to cause adverse cardiovascular health in offspring, herein we investigated the cardiovascular physiology in offspring of mice exposed to EC aerosol during pregnancy. Pregnant FVB/J mice were exposed to filtered air (FA), EC aerosol (50:50 mixture of propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin, PV), or EC aerosol with 2% nicotine (Nic) during the entire gestational period. Echocardiography and pressure-volume loops were performed on male and female adult offspring to quantitatively measure left ventricle (LV) function. To understand how the groups responded to cardiac insult, myocardial infarction (MI) was induced in a sub-group of offspring at 3 months of age, and LV function was measured 3 weeks post-MI. Hearts were then collected from mice to interrogate fibrotic area. One-way ANOVA was used to determine the significance between experimental groups. Data from PV loops and echocardiography of male offspring from dams exposed to PV or Nic demonstrated a significant decrease in contractility in PV exposed male and female mice when compared to FA mice. After MI, male mice also had significantly reduced contractility in PV-exposed mice compared to FA mice, but this was not apparent with female mice. However, among female mice post-MI, Tau was significantly increased in the Nic group compared to the PV group, which was not demonstrated in the other groups. The Barker hypothesis has established that an adverse intrauterine environment predisposes the fetus to disease development during adulthood. Our results strongly suggest that in utero exposure to EC aerosol reduces offspring cardiac function in adulthood. Further work is needed to inform health recommendations for pregnant women and vaping usage. Funding provided by the American Heart Association (20YVNR35490079) and the National Institutes of Health (R01HL139348) to LEW. This abstract was presented at the American Physiology Summit 2025 and is only available in HTML format. There is no downloadable file or PDF version. The Physiology editorial board was not involved in the peer review process.