AIM To investigate the role of four parental folate pathway single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) i.e., methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) 677C>T, MTHFR 1298A>C, methionine synthase reductase (MTRR) 66A>G and glutamate carboxypeptidase (GCP) II 1561C>T on susceptibility to neural tube defects (NTDs) in 50 couples with NTD offspring and 80 couples with normal pregnancy outcome. RESU...

Maternal obesity increases offspring birth weight and susceptibility to obesity. Adiponectin is an adipocyte-secreted hormone with a prominent function in maintaining energy homeostasis. In contrast to adults, neonatal blood adiponectin levels are positively correlated with anthropometric parameters of adiposity. This study was designed to investigate the role of adiponectin in maternal obesity...

Prenatal development is recognized as a critical period in the etiology of obesity and cardiometabolic disease. Potential strategies to reduce maternal obesity-induced risk later in life have been largely overlooked. In this paper, we first propose a conceptual framework for the role of public health and preventive medicine in mitigating the effects of fetal programming. Second, we review a sma...

Angelman syndrome (AS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder caused by loss of the maternally inherited allele of UBE3A. AS model mice, which carry a maternal Ube3a null mutation (Ube3a(m-/p+)), recapitulate major features of AS in humans, including enhanced seizure susceptibility. Excitatory neurotransmission onto neocortical pyramidal neurons is diminished in Ube3a(m-/p+) mice, seemingly at odds w...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Patterns of development predict cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk, and ethnic differences therein, but it remains unclear why apparently 'adaptive plasticity' in early life should generate health costs in later life. We hypothesized that offspring receiving low maternal investment during fetal life, the primary period of organogenesis, should predict a shorter reproduc...

The authors investigated whether polymorphisms in two maternal metabolic genes, cytochrome P-450 1A1 (CYP1A1) MspI and epoxide hydrolase 1 (EPHX1) Tyr113His, affect the association of maternal passive smoking with infant birth weight. The study was conducted in a cohort of 1,388 newly married mothers of liveborn singletons who worked in textile mills in Anqing, China, from 1996 to 2000. Multipl...

The aim of this study was to improve knowledge about transplacental transfer of an environmentally relevant PCB mixture by evaluating congener levels in livers and brains of rat dams and fetuses after maternal exposure, and correlating them to the levels of CYP450 and P-glycoprotein, involved in biotransformation and xenobiotics export, respectively. Pregnant dams were injected daily from gesta...

OBJECTIVE Maternal and environmental factors control the epigenetic fetal programming of the embryo, thereby defining the susceptibility for metabolic or endocrine disorders in the offspring. Pharmacological interventions required as a consequence of gestational problems, e.g. hypertension, can potentially interfere with correct fetal programming. As epigenetic alterations are usually only reve...

BACKGROUND Rubella infection and congenital rubella are currently rare in the United Kingdom, although sporadic cases occur, often associated with travel abroad. Uptake of the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine has declined in recent years, and there is a danger that rubella infection could start to circulate again, with serious implications for susceptible pregnant women. This c...