BACKGROUND Pregnant women who travel to malarious areas and their clinicians need data on the safety of malaria chemoprophylaxis. METHODS The effect of exposure to mefloquine on pregnancy and offspring outcomes was evaluated using the F. Hoffmann-La Roche global drug safety database for the time frame 31 January 1986 through 26 October 2010. We investigated pregnancy and fetal outcomes in mat...

Human diseases developed during pregnancy could be caused by the direct effects of both maternal and fetal genes, and/or by the indirect effects caused by genetic conflicts. Genetic conflicts exist when the effects of fetal genes are opposed by the effects of maternal genes, or when there is a conflict between the maternal and paternal genes within the fetal genome. The two types of genetic con...

Mouse genetic studies using Robertsonian and reciprocal translocations have shown that certain autosomal regions of loci are subject to a parental germ line imprint, which renders maternal and paternal copies functionally inequivalent in the embryo or later stages of development. Duplication of maternal or paternal copies with corresponding paternal/maternal deficiencies in chromosomally balanc...

Although microcephaly is a feature of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, it is currently unknown whether low-to-moderate prenatal alcohol exposure affects head circumference. Small magnitude associations reported in observational studies are likely to be misleading due to confounding and misclassification biases. Alternative analytical approaches such as the use of family negative controls (e.g. comparing...

Human chromosome 11p15.5 and distal mouse chromosome 7 include a megabase-scale chromosomal domain with multiple genes subject to parental imprinting. Here we describe mouse and human versions of a novel imprinted gene, IMPT1 , which lies between IPL and p57 KIP2 and which encodes a predicted multi-membrane-spanning protein similar to bacterial and eukaryotic polyspecific metabolite transporter...

Mice with uniparental partial or complete disomies for any one of 11 identified chromosomes show abnormal phenotypes. The abnormalities, or imprinting effects, can be attributable to an incorrect dosage of maternal or paternal copies of imprinted gene(s) located within the regions involved. Here we show that combinations of partial disomies may result in interactions between imprinting effects ...

There are two mechanisms by which the fetus escapes damage from the maternal immune response during pregnancy. First, the placenta serves as an antigen-bearing immunoabsorbent barrier between the maternal and fetal circulation, so that the mother's humoral immune response to fetal antigens derived from the paternal major histocompatibility complex has no effect on the fetus. Second, the placent...