The placenta is a key organ in fetal growth and development because it controls maternal-to-fetal exchanges of nutrients and hormones. It also interferes with drug delivery to the fetus by expressing active membrane transporters and xenobiotic metabolism enzymes. Developing strategies to understand the role of the placenta in drug delivery is a challenge in toxicology. Despite common physiologi...

There is considerable evidence that smoke exposure during pregnancy (SDP) environmentally influences birth weight after controlling for genetic influences and maternal characteristics. However, maternal smoking during pregnancy-the behavior that leads to smoke exposure during pregnancy-is also genetically-influenced, indicating the potential role of passive gene-environment correlation. An alte...

Survival of insects on a substrate containing toxic substances such as plant secondary metabolites or insecticides is dependent on the metabolism or excretion of those xenobiotics. The primary sites of xenobiotic metabolism are the midgut, Malpighian tubules, and fat body. In general, gene expression in these organs is reported for the entire tissue by online databases, but several studies have...

Epidemiological studies have estimated that approximately 80% of all cancers are related to environmental factors. Individual cancer susceptibility can be the result of several host factors, including differences in metabolism, DNA repair, altered expression of tumor suppressor genes and proto-oncogenes, and nutritional status. Xenobiotic metabolism is the principal mechanism for maintaining ho...