Maternal exposure to norfloxacin induces impairment of cardiac development in zebrafish offspring

Abstract

Fluoroquinolone antibiotics (FQs) play a crucial role in human and animal medicine, but their increasing use and high persistence have posed serious threats to ecosystems and public health. FQs have been found to be associated with heart developmental defects. However, the intergenerational effects of FQs on fish cardiac development remain poorly understood. Here we investigated the chronic effects of maternal exposure to environmentally related concentrations of norfloxacin (NOR) on cardiac development in zebrafish offspring. Our results showed that maternal NOR exposure resulted in increased mortality and malformation rates, impaired cardiac function and changes in cardiac phenotype, including larger cardiac looping angles, longer ventricular and increased distance between sinus venosus and bulbus arteriosus (SV-BA distance) in zebrafish offspring. Expression of genes involved in early cardiac development (myl7, vmhc, gata4, tbx1, tbx5, and nkx2.5) showed disorder. Maternal NOR exposure impairs cardiac looping by altering transcription levels of non-canonical WNT/PCP pathway genes (wnt11, fzd7a, and vangl2). Additionally, offspring of zebrafish following maternal NOR exposure showed increase in oxidative stress and apoptotic level. Meanwhile, genes associated with histone methylation (kdm6a, kdm6b, hoxd11a, hoxd9, and hoxd10) were up-regulated. Taken together, our results suggest that maternal NOR exposure cause cardiotoxicity in zebrafish offspring, possibly through inducing oxidative stress, promoting apoptosis, and regulating genes expression involved in cardiac development. We speculate that the intergenerational mechanisms of NOR action are likely to be related with histone modifications. Our study provides new insights into the potential risks and mechanisms underlying cardiotoxicity in fish offspring following maternal exposure to NOR.