Arsenic is an important environmental toxicant which is usually found in drinking water in inorganic form. The hypothesis tested in this investigation is; arsenic exposure causes neural tube defects (NTDs) andthese defects of the central nervous system are more likely related to folate deficiency during fetal life. In this study, sodium arsenate was administered via intraperitoneal route at a r...

Abnormal folate one-carbon metabolism (FOCM) is implicated in neural tube defects (NTDs), severe malformations of the nervous system. MTHFR mediates unidirectional transfer of methyl groups from the folate cycle to the methionine cycle and, therefore, represents a key nexus in partitioning one-carbon units between FOCM functional outputs. Methionine cycle inhibitors prevent neural tube closure ...

Folate supplementation prevents up to 70% of neural tube defects (NTDs), which result from a failure of neural tube closure during embryogenesis. The elucidation of the mechanisms underlying folate action has been challenging. This study introduces Xenopus laevis as a model to determine the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in folate action during neural tube formation. We show that kn...

Neural tube defects (NTD) comprise of a group of congenital malformations that include spina bifida, anencephaly and encephalocele. Reports have implicated zinc deficiency as one of the causative factors of NTDs. We compared the serum zinc level of 23 newborns having neural tube defects with 35 healthy controls by spectrophotometery during 2003-2004. Zinc deficiency was documented in 43.5% of t...

Neural tube defects (NTDs), such as exencephaly and spina bifida, occur when the neural tube fails to close properly during embryonic development. Folic acid supplementation has been shown to effectively reduce the occurrence of NTDs and low folate is a known risk factor for human NTDs. However despite extensive research, the mechanism explaining how the folate status affects the incidence of N...

Neural tube defects (NTDs) such as spina bifida, anencephaly, and encephalocele are serious birth defects of the brain and spine that occur during the first month of pregnancy when the neural tube fails to close completely. Randomized controlled trials and observational studies have shown that adequate daily consumption of folic acid before and during early pregnancy considerably reduces the ri...

Jennifer Williams, MSN1, Cara T. Mai, DrPH1, Joe Mulinare, MD1, Jennifer Isenburg, MSPH1,2, Timothy J. Flood, MD3, Mary Ethen, MPH4, Barbara Frohnert, MPH5, Russell S. Kirby, PhD6 (Author affiliations at end of text) In 1992, the U.S. Public Health Service recommended that all women capable of becoming pregnant consume 400 μg of folic acid daily to prevent neural tube defects (NTDs) (1). NTDs a...

Neural Tube Defects, resulting from the failure in the closure of the neural tube, have been found to be one of the major causes of mortality and morbidity in the infants and have a variable worldwide incidence rate. Various debatable theories suggest different models for the process of the formation of the neural tube or neurulation, resulting in different types of NTDs. NTDs are an outcome of...

Neural tube defects (NTDs) are common complex congenital malformations resulting from failure of the neural tube closure during embryogenesis. It is established that folic acid supplementation decreases the prevalence of NTDs, which has led to national public health policies regarding folic acid. To date, animal studies have not provided sufficient information to establish the metabolic and/or ...

Members of the Eph receptor tyrosine kinase have previously been implicated in cranial neural tube development. Failure of neural tube closure leads to the devastating conditions known as anencephaly and spina bifida. EphA2 and EphA4 are expressed at the tips of the closing spinal neural folds prior and during neural tube closure. We investigated the possible role of murine EphA2 and EphA4 duri...