Nicotine has been implicated as a causative factor in the intrauterine growth retardation associated with smoking in pregnancy. A study was set up to ascertain the effect of nicotine on fetal growth and whether this could be related to the actions of this drug on maternal adipose tissue metabolism. Sprague-Dawley rats were mated and assigned to control and nicotine groups, the latter receiving ...

Human hepatic membrane-embedded transporter proteins are involved in trafficking endogenous and exogenous substrates. Even though impact of transporters on pharmacokinetics is recognized, little is known on maturation of transporter protein expression levels, especially during early life. We aimed to study the protein expression of 10 transporters in liver tissue from fetuses, infants, and adul...

in this study the programmed cell death (apoptosis) of human neutrophilic granulocytes was investigated in the presence and absence of fetal calf serum (fcs), cycloheximide and actinomycin-d. the results show that when fcs is omitted from cultures, apart from a decrease in viability, the percentage of apoptotic cells and dna fragmentation increases. apoptosis is accelerated in serum withdrawal ...

BACKGROUND Fetal neuroendocrine maturation in late gestation is critical for maintenance of fetal homeostasis, growth, and readiness for birth. Sheep express estrogen receptors (ERs) in various brain regions. However, little is known about the regulation of ER-alpha and ER-beta in the ovine brain prenatally. OBJECTIVE The present study was designed to test the hypothesis that the expression o...

Down syndrome (DS, trisomy 21) is the most frequent genetic cause of mental retardation. Although known for more than a hundred years the underlying pathomechanisms for the phenotype and impaired brain functions remain elusive. Performing protein hunting in fetal DS brain, we detected a series of cytoskeleton proteins with aberrant expression in fetal DS cortex. Fetal brain cortex samples of co...

alpha 1-Adrenergic receptors mediate vasoconstriction in the pulmonary and systemic vasculature. In sheep the in vivo vasoconstrictor response to alpha 1-adrenergic stimulation is less in the pulmonary circulation compared with the systemic circulation of the fetus, the response increases in both vascular beds with fetal and postnatal development, and it decreases in the systemic vasculature wi...

Prostacyclin (PGI2) is a key mediator of pulmonary vascular and parenchymal function during late fetal and early postnatal life, and its synthesis in intrapulmonary arteries increases markedly during that period. The rate-limiting enzyme in PGI2 synthesis in the developing lung is cyclooxygenase (COX). To understand better the mechanisms underlying the developmental increase in PGI2 synthesis, ...

OBJECTIVE Spontaneous preterm birth (PTB) and preterm prelabor rupture of membranes (pPROM) are major pregnancy complications often associated with a fetal inflammatory response. Biomolecular markers of this fetal inflammatory response to both infectious and non-infectious risk factors and their contribution to PTB and pPROM mechanism are still unclear. This study examined fetal membrane produc...

Fetal exposure to xenobiotics can be restricted by transporters at the interface between maternal and fetal circulation. Previous work identified transporters in the placenta; however, less is known about the presence of these transporters in the fetal membranes (i.e., yolk sac and amniotic membranes). The purpose of this study was to quantify mRNA and protein expression of xenobiotic transport...

1alpha,25-dihydroxyvitamin D(3) [1,25(OH)(2)D(3)] has been reported to stimulate lung maturity, alveolar type II cell differentiation, and pulmonary surfactant synthesis in rat lung. We hypothesized that 1,25(OH)(2)D(3) stimulates expression of surfactant protein-A (SP-A), SP-B, and SP-C in human fetal lung and type II cells. We found that immunoreactive vitamin D receptor was detectable in fet...