Prenatal cocaine exposure increases heart susceptibility to ischaemia-reperfusion injury in adult male but not female rats

The present study tested the hypothesis that prenatal cocaine exposure differentially regulates heart susceptibility to ischaemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury in adult offspring male and female rats. Pregnant rats were administered intraperitoneally either saline or cocaine (15 mg kg(-1)) twice daily from day 15 to day 21 of gestational age. There were no differences in maternal weight gain and birth weight between the two groups. Hearts were isolated from 2-month-old male and female offspring and were subjected to I/R (25 min/60 min) in a Langendorff preparation. Preischaemic values of left ventricular (LV) function were the same between the saline control and cocaine-treated hearts for both male and female rats. Prenatal cocaine exposure significantly increased I/R-induced myocardial apoptosis and infarct size, and significantly attenuated the postischaemic recovery of LV function in adult male offspring. In contrast, cocaine did not affect I/R-induced injury and postischaemic recovery of LV function in the female hearts. There was a significant decrease in PKC epsilon and phospho-PKC epsilon levels in LV in the male, but not female, offspring exposed to cocaine before birth. These results suggest that prenatal cocaine exposure causes a sex-specific increase in heart susceptibility to I/R injury in adult male offspring, and the decreased PKC epsilon gene expression in the male heart may play an important role.