This publication reviews some pathogenetic features of the transplacental infection with porcine viruses in sows. Viremia either with virus freely circulating or associated to peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) is an essential part of such pathogenesis. Virus replication occurs either in fetal tissues only or both in fetal and maternal tissues and the outcome may be different. Since porc...

During murine fetal development, hematopoietic progenitors start to colonize the thymic anlage at day 11 of gestation via blood stream. The present study aims at identifying the earliest prethymic progenitors in circulation. Here, we show that the IL-7R cells in Linc-kit population are circulating exclusively between days 11 to 14 of fetal age. Clonal analysis revealed that these IL-7R cells mo...

Twelve sows were used to examine the effects of feeding L-carnitine from artificial insemination to mid-gestation on maternal circulating IGF-I and carnitine concentrations and fetal growth. Supplementing L-carnitine did not influence the serum concentration of IGF-I. However, sows that were fed carnitine had increased circulating plasma free carnitine. Litters from sows fed L-carnitine were he...

OBJECTIVE To examine the performance of a mass spectrometry-based detection platform using three Y-chromosome sequences for fetal sex determination from circulating cell-free fetal DNA (ccffDNA) in maternal blood in the first trimester of pregnancy. METHODS We extracted ccffDNA for the determination of fetal sex from stored maternal plasma obtained at 11 to 13 weeks' gestation from singleton ...

Fetal cells, specifically fetal erythroblasts, as well as cell-free fetal DNA are present in the maternal circulation. Both are currently being investigated as a means for the non-invasive risk-free analysis of fetal genetic traits. The origin of this cell-free fetal DNA in the maternal circulation is currently unclear. Since numerous fetal erythroblasts have been demonstrated to exhibit an apo...

BACKGROUND Arachidonic acid (AA; C20∶4 n-6) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA; C22∶6 n-3) are important long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) in maintaining pancreatic beta-cell structure and function. Newborns of gestational diabetic mothers are more susceptible to the development of type 2 diabetes in adulthood. It is not known whether low circulating AA or DHA is involved in perinatal...

This study aimed to verify the reliability of the 7 tissue differentially methylated regions used in the methylated DNA immunoprecipitation (MeDIP) real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (real-time qPCR) based approach of fetal DNA in maternal blood to diagnosis of fetal trisomy 21. Forty pregnant women with high risk pregnancy who were referred after first or second trimester screeni...