Studies of the abnormal oocyte (abo) gene of Drosophila melanogaster have previously been limited to the analysis of a single mutant allele, abnormal oocyte1 (abo1). The abo1 mutation causes a maternal-effect lethality that can be partially rescued zygotically by the abo+ allele and by increasing the dosage of specific regions of heterochromatin denoted ABO. This report describes the properties...

AIMS Environmental information received by a mother can induce a phenotype change in her offspring, commonly known as a maternal effect (trans-generational effect). The present work verified the effects of lipopolysaccharide (LPS), which mimics bacterial infection, on maternal care and on the activity of related brain areas in F1 offspring, i.e., female rats that were prenatally exposed to LPS....

It has been proposed that the Male Specific Lethal (MSL) complex is active in Drosophila melanogaster embryos of both sexes prior to the maternal-to-zygotic transition. Elevated gene expression from the two X chromosomes of female embryos is proposed to facilitate the stable establishment of Sex-lethal (Sxl) expression, which determines sex and represses further activity of the MSL complex, lea...

BACKGROUND The impact of prenatal lead exposure on neurodevelopment remains unclear in terms of consistency, the trimester of greatest vulnerability, and the best method for estimating fetal lead exposure. OBJECTIVE We studied prenatal lead exposure's impact on neurodevelopment using repeated measures of fetal dose as reflected by maternal whole blood and plasma lead levels. METHODS We meas...

Background: Attachment style is the pattern of an individual in forming relationships with others, which is believed to be determined in the early years of life. Maternal-fetal attachment (MFA) is a term used to describe the relationship between a pregnant woman and her fetus. Qualitative descriptions of maternal attitudes and adaptation to pregnancy indicate that MFA is based on cognitive repr...

The last 20 years has seen a huge increase in employment among mothers in the first year after giving birth in the UK. We examine whether early maternal employment has an adverse effect on child outcomes. We analyse rich data from a cohort of children born in the UK in the early 1990s and examine the impact of early maternal employment on three outcome variables measuring child cognitive develo...

In female heterogamous (ZW) species, sex-linked genes coding for maternal products that are packaged into the egg open a unique arena for genetic conflict that does not occur in male heterogamous (XY) species. Z-linked maternal-effect alleles that help sons and harm daughters are expected to go to fixation, as are W-linked alleles that help daughters and harm sons. This conflict differs from kn...

This meta-analysis of 69 studies (1,483 effect sizes) used random effects models to examine maternal employment during infancy/early childhood in relation to 2 major domains of child functioning: achievement and behavior problems. Analyses of studies that spanned 5 decades indicated that, with a few exceptions, early employment was not significantly associated with later achievement or internal...

Objective: We conducted a meta-analysis of epidemiological studies investigating the association between maternal age and autism. Method: Using recommended guidelines for performing meta-analyses, we systematically selected, and extracted results from, epidemiological scientific studies reported before January 2012. We calculated pooled risk estimates comparing categories of advancing maternal ...