The placenta is the fastest growing organ of the human body. The placenta grows from a single cell to approximately 5x10 cells in 38 weeks. A good blood supply from maternal blood via the spiral arteries to the placenta is not only very important for the foetus but also very important for normal development of the placenta. The maternal blood is supplied to the placenta by spiral arteries. Appr...

The survival of neonatal mammals requires a correct function of the respiratory rhythm generator (RRG), and therefore, the processes that control its prenatal maturation are of vital importance. In humans, lambs and rodents, foetal breathing movements (FBMs) occur early during gestation, are episodic, sensitive to bioamines, central hypoxia and inputs from CNS upper structures, and evolve with ...

Biochem. 46. 735-74 I Hietanen, E. & Greenwood, M. R. C. (1977)J. Lipid Res. 18,480-490 Knittle, J. L., Timmers, K., Guisberg-Fellner, F., Brown, R. E. & Katz, D. P. (1979) J. Clin. Invest. 63, 239-246 Plaas, H. A. K. & Cryer, A. (1980a) in Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Tissue Culture in Medical Research (Richards, R. J. & Rajan, K. T., eds.). pp. 105-106, Pergamon Press, Ox...

The expression of the growth hormone receptor (GHR) gene was investigated in semitendinosus muscle during bovine foetal development in both normal and double-muscled Charolais foetuses which differ with respect to muscle development. Northern-blot analysis of foetal muscle RNA preparations with a GHR cDNA probe identified the 4.5 kb GHR mRNA as early as 130 days post-conception. In double-muscl...

The aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis that the natural antioxidant melatonin (MEL) and the synthetic antioxidant stobadine (STO) could reduce the incidence of maternal and embryofoetal toxicity in rats due to intrauterine hypoxia. Chronic hypoxia was induced pharmacologically by the administration of the anticonvulsant phenytoin (PHT) during the entire period of pregnancy. PHT...

The tissue concentration of an endogenous beta-galactoside-specific lectin is developmentally regulated in rabbit tissues during foetal and neonatal development. Immunoassay data and localization studies both indicate that the lectin is particularly associated with late embryonic and early postnatal development. No lectin could be detected in embryos prior to 21 days of gestation, whereas many ...

Antioxidant defences are comparatively low during foetal development making the brain particularly susceptible to oxidative stress during antioxidant deficiencies. The brain is one of the organs containing the highest concentration of vitamin C (VitC) and VitC deficiency during foetal development may place the brain at risk of redox status imbalance. In the present study, we investigated the de...

Diabetes in pregnancy starts affecting the foetus even in the pre-conception period. The complications encountered in third trimester are foetal macrosomia and intrauterine foetal demise; birth of a macrosomic baby further leads to shoulder dystocia, birth trauma, brachial plexus injury. Additionally, pregnancies with overt/pregestational diabetes may be complicated with foetal growth restricti...

The isoenzymic forms of branched-chain amino acid aminotransferase in mitochondria of rat tissues were compared with the better-known cytosolic forms in order to find any regular pattern of expression of these isoenzymes during development. Mitochondria of all tissues examined except brain contained only a type-I isoenzyme differing from the cytosolic type-I isoenzyme in heat stability and acti...

This study has examined the osteogenic and chondrogenic differentiation of human foetal femur-derived cells in 3-dimensional pellet cultures. After culture for 21-28 days in osteogenic media, the pellets acquired a unique configuration that consisted of an outer fibrous layer, an osteoid-like shell surrounding a cellular and cartilaginous region. This configuration is typical to the cross secti...