Abstract
Persistent organic pollutants are a group of chemicals that include polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). PCBs exposure during adult life increases incidence and severity of cardiomyopathies, whereas in utero exposure determines congenital heart defects. Being fat-soluble, PCBs are passed to newborns through maternal milk, impairing heart functionality in the adult. It is still unknown how PCBs impair cardiac contraction at cellular/molecular levels. Here, we study the molecular mechanisms by which PCBs cause the observed heart contraction defects, analysing the alterations of Ca(2+) toolkit components that regulate contraction. We investigated the effect that Aroclor 1254 (Aroclor), a mixture of PCBs, has on perinatal-like cardiomyocytes derived from mouse embryonic stem cells. Cardiomyocytes, exposed to 1 or 2 µg/ml Aroclor for 24 h, were analyzed for their kinematics contractile properties and intracellular Ca(2+) dynamics. We observed that Aroclor impairs cardiomyocytes contractile properties by inhibiting spontaneous Ca(2+) oscillations. It disrupts intracellular Ca(2+) homeostasis by reducing the sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca(2+) content and by inhibiting voltage-gated Ca(2+) entry. These findings contribute to the understanding of the molecular underpinnings of PCBs-induced cardiovascular alterations, which are emerging as an additional life-threatening hurdle associated to PCBs pollution. Therefore, PCBs-dependent alteration of intracellular Ca(2+) dynamics is the most likely trigger of developmental cardiac functional alteration.