Smoking during pregnancy can cause genetic instability of the fetus

2005/01/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Medikuntza

The Spanish Association of Pediatrics awards the Pediatrics Laboratory of the University of Navarra for a study on the relationship between tobacco and the genetic instability of the fetus. This study was conducted by Dr. Marta Zalakain in collaboration with the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics of the Hospital Virgen del Camino. This study collected the umbilical cord from births that have been given in this hospital for three years.

These umbilical cords have been divided into four groups: mothers who do not smoke, smokers, who have stopped smoking during pregnancy and who have continued to smoke. The objective has been to check whether or not there is instability in the blood of the umbilical cord, depending on whether the mother smokes actively or passively.

Micronucleos

For this work, Marta Zalakain has used micronuclean trials, a new technique she has developed and applied. In fact, when a genotoxic agent reaches cells, such as benzoapirene containing tobacco, genetic damage that affects cell division may occur. Due to these damage, several fragments of chromosomes separate from the nucleus forming a second nucleus, the micronucleo. The researcher wanted to see if there are differences between smokers and non-smokers in the number of micronucleans.

At the same time, I wanted to measure the effectiveness of the micronuclean technique in measuring fetal instability. In fact, Marta Zalakain had to perform numerous trials to check in vitro how the number of micronucleans varied when benzoapirene was added.

Now, in the in vivo trials, for the first time they have seen that the number of micronucleans is higher in the samples of mothers who have smoked during pregnancy, but these results should be taken with care, since there is a barrier of the placenta and it is not known with certainty how much benzoapirene reaches the fetus.

In addition to benzo April, the research group has analyzed other genetic markers related to smoking. There are detoxification enzymes (destoxication) that, depending on the genetic variety, are more effective in some people. Currently, researchers are defining the variant of samples.