Fig. 1

Early pre-implantation alcohol exposure affects mouse embryonic development at mid-gestation. a Schematic description of binge alcohol exposure model during pre-implantation embryo development, and analyses performed at mid-gestation. Pregnant females were exposed to EtOH (2 × 2.5 g/kg EtOH) or Saline (Ctrl) (equivalent volume to ethanol) by subcutaneous injections (2 h interval) to precisely target E2.5 stage embryos (~ 8-cell stage). E10.5 embryos were collected for morphological assessment; forebrains were isolated for genome-wide DNA methylation analyses. b Quantification of blood alcohol concentration in pregnant females following EtOH exposure at E2.5. Red stars indicate the two EtOH injection time points. Peak level (284 mg/dL) was observed at 3 h post-exposure, with an average of 158.31 mg/dL over 4 h. c Number of E10.5 embryos per litter in Ctrl (n = 16 litters; average 8.13 embryos/litter) and EtOH-exposed (n = 22 litters; average 7.91 embryos/litter). d Male and female embryo sex ratios of litters presented in c), with number of embryos shown in bar graph. e Embryonic (E10.5) measurements: crown-rump length, head height, occipital-nose length and brain sagittal length. Control embryos: (n = 63, 8 litters), ethanol-exposed embryos (n = 76, 11 litters). No significant difference of the means; t test with Welch’s correction, but higher variance in EtOH-exposed; F-test