PROJECT #1. Developmental programming of skeletal muscle: impact of fetal growth retardation on muscle morphology in adult rats

The early-life environment, particularly in the fetus, is now recognised as an important determinant of several adult-onset diseases. Thus, increased frequencies of hypertension, obesity, dyslipidemia and type 2 diabetes, collectively referred to as the ‘Metabolic Syndrome’, have been linked to intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR), an assumed marker of a poor fetal environment. These links are thought to reflect ‘developmental programming’, the process by which various organ systems are affected during specific developmental periods of susceptibility such that consequent pathological effects emerge later in life.