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A Novel Ex Ovo Banding Technique to Alter Intracardiac Hemodynamics in an Embryonic Chicken System
Published on: May 13, 2016
The highs and lows of programmed cardiovascular disease by developmental hypoxia: studies in the chicken embryo
N Itani1,2, C E Salinas3, M Villena1
1Department of Physiology, Development & Neuroscience, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EG, UK.
Insights
Adverse pregnancy conditions can program fetal cardiovascular dysfunction. The chicken embryo model isolates stressors like hypoxia, revealing their specific impacts on heart development and function.
Area of Science:
- Developmental biology
- Cardiovascular science
- Environmental health
Background:
- Adverse pregnancy conditions can lead to fetal origins of cardiovascular dysfunction.
- Early life environmental stressors, including hypoxia, nutrition, and stress hormones, may promote offspring cardiovascular dysfunction.
- Disentangling individual stressors in humans and mammals is challenging due to maternal/placental factors.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review studies using the chicken embryo model to investigate isolated developmental stressors.
- To determine the effects of chronic developmental hypoxia on prenatal growth, cardiovascular development, and pituitary-adrenal function.
Main Methods:
- Utilizing the chicken embryo as a model to isolate effects of oxygenation, nutrition, or stress hormones.
- Examining isolated chronic developmental hypoxia, independent of maternal physiology.
- Summarizing studies on prenatal growth, cardiovascular development, and pituitary-adrenal function.
Main Results:
- The chicken embryo model allows for the isolation of specific stressors on cardiovascular development.
- Chronic developmental hypoxia has demonstrable effects on prenatal growth and cardiovascular development.
- Isolated hypoxia impacts pituitary-adrenal function in the developing chicken embryo.
Conclusions:
- The chicken embryo model is valuable for studying the independent effects of developmental stressors on cardiovascular programming.
- Understanding isolated stressor impacts is crucial for comprehending fetal origins of cardiovascular disease.
- Further research using this model can elucidate mechanisms of cardiovascular dysfunction programming.
Abstract:
It is now established that adverse conditions during pregnancy can trigger a fetal origin of cardiovascular dysfunction and/or increase the risk of heart disease in later life. Suboptimal environmental conditions during early life that may promote the development of cardiovascular dysfunction in the offspring include alterations in fetal oxygenation and nutrition as well as fetal exposure to stress hormones, such as glucocorticoids. There has been growing interest in identifying the partial contributions of each of these stressors to programming of cardiovascular dysfunction. However, in humans and in many animal models this is difficult, as the challenges cannot be disentangled. By using the chicken embryo as an animal model, science has been able to circumvent a number of problems. In contrast to mammals, in the chicken embryo the effects on the developing cardiovascular system of changes in oxygenation, nutrition or stress hormones can be isolated and determined directly, independent of changes in the maternal or placental physiology. In this review, we summarise studies that have exploited the chicken embryo model to determine the effects on prenatal growth, cardiovascular development and pituitary-adrenal function of isolated chronic developmental hypoxia.
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Types of Hypoxia
There are four primary types of hypoxia, each resulting from a different cause:
1. Anemic hypoxia: This type occurs due to insufficient oxygen delivery caused by a lack of red blood cells (RBCs) or RBCs with abnormal or...