Prenatal nicotine increases pulmonary α7 nicotinic receptor expression and alters fetal lung development in monkeys
J. Clin. Invest. Harmanjatinder S. Sekhon, et al. 103:637 doi:10.1172/JCI5232 [Go to this article.]

Figure 5
(a and b) RT-PCR showing the presence of α7 (a) and α5 (b) nicotinic receptor subunit mRNAs in normal 140-day fetal monkey lung. Primers to the human DNA sequences were used for RT-PCR as described in the methods. Total RNA was prepared from the monkey tissues shown. All tissues except lung were from adult animals. Arrows show the predicted size of bands to be amplified for each subunit. The identity of amplified bands was confirmed by sequence analysis. Lower-molecular-weight bands likely represent nonspecific amplification products. (c and d) In situ hybridization analysis showing expression of α7 nAChR mRNA surrounding cartilaginous airway in nicotine-exposed 134-day fetal lung. Hybridization was performed with ³³P-labeled cRNA probe prepared from amplified monkey α7 mRNA fragment shown in a. c shows antisense; d shows sense. ×100. nAChR, nicotine cholinergic receptor; RT, reverse transcriptase.