Developmental programming is the concept that a maternal stimulus or insult at a critical period in fetal development has long-term effects on the offspring. Historically, considerable effort has been made to understand how nutrition influences health and productivity during the postnatal period. Whereas maternal nutrition during pregnancy plays an essential role in proper fetal and placental d...

For the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, nutrient limitation is a key developmental signal causing diploid cells to switch from yeast-form budding to either foraging pseudohyphal (PH) growth or meiosis and sporulation. Prolonged starvation leads to lineage restriction, such that cells exiting meiotic prophase are committed to complete sporulation even if nutrients are restored. Here, we have ide...

Limited nutrient availability is a cause of intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), a condition that has important implications for the well being of the offspring. Using the established IUGR model of maternal fasting in the rat, we investigated mechanisms that control gene expression and mRNA translation in late-gestation fetal liver. Maternal fasting for 48 h during the last one-third of gest...

Fetal survival is dependent upon proper placental growth and vascularity early in pregnancy. The ability for the fetus to reach its genetic growth potential is dependent upon the continual plasticity of placental function throughout gestation. Inadequate maternal environment has been documented to alter fetal organogenesis and growth, thus leading to improper postnatal growth and performance in...

Size and copy number of organelles are influenced by an equilibrium of membrane fusion and fission. We studied this equilibrium on vacuoles-the lysosomes of yeast. Vacuole fusion can readily be reconstituted and quantified in vitro, but it had not been possible to study fission of the organelle in a similar way. Here we present a cell-free system that reconstitutes fragmentation of purified yea...

Integration and modularity are fundamental determinants of how natural selection effects evolutionary change in complex multivariate traits. Interest in the study of the specific developmental basis of integration through experimental approaches is fairly recent and it has mainly focused on its genetic determinants. In this study, we present evidence that postnatal environmental perturbations c...

Glucocorticoid action has a major role in regulating fetal and postnatal lung development, although its impact on mitochondrial development is less well understood. Critically, the consequences of any change in glucocorticoid action and mitochondrial function in early life may not be limited to the postnatal period, but may extend into later life. This paper focuses on more recent findings on t...

Caenorhabditis elegans is widely used as a model for investigation of the relationships between aging, nutrient restriction and signalling via the DAF-2 (abnormal dauer formation 2) receptor for insulin-like peptides and AGE-1 [ageing alteration 1; orthologue of PI3K (phosphoinositide 3-kinase)], but the identity of the glucose transporters that may link these processes is unknown. We unexpecte...

BACKGROUND Nutrient deficiency during perinatal development is associated with an increased risk to develop obesity, diabetes and hypertension in the adulthood. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the developmental programming of the metabolic syndrome remain largely unknown. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Given the essential role of the hypothalamus in the integration of nutritional...

Background: Up to 60% of patients with ulcerative colitis are seen with nutrient deficiency; however, no specific diet is recommended. The aim of this study was to obtain knowledge on whether restriction or addition of specific food items might contribute to malnutrition in these patients. Methods: A qualitative semi-structured interview study of outpatient clinic patients with ulcerative colit...