Figure 3.

Effects of PNE on heart function and ischemia-reperfusion induced heart infarct size after treatment of LNA-miR-181a. Rats were administered with either saline or nicotine from gestation day 4 until postnatal day 10. After treatment with LNA-miR-181a, the offspring at 3-month-old age from each group were subjected to 45 min of heart ischemia followed by reperfusion. Echocardiographic analysis was obtained from different time periods including baseline, 1 day before I/R, 1 day after I/R, and 7 days after I/R. (A) left ventricular end-diastolic dimension (LVEDD), (B) left ventricular end-systolic dimension (LVESD), (C) percentage of ejection fraction (EF%), (D) percentage of fractional shortening (FS%), (E) representative echocardiograph evaluation of cardiac function from each group (n=4~10 animals/group), *P < 0.05 versus saline control group, as determined by Student's t-test. For the infarction size, the hearts of rats were isolated 24 h after I/R and their infarct sizes in each rat group were determined with 2% TTC staining (F), the graph showing percent of left ventricle infarct size (infarct area/ left ventricle area x100%) in each offspring group (n=4 animals/group). *P < 0.05 versus saline control group, as determined by Student's t-test.