Deficiencies in maternal endothelial NO synthase (eNOS) have been associated with pregnancy complications, intrauterine growth retardation, and altered vascular function in offspring. In the present study, we investigated the influence of the maternal eNOS genotype on offspring's blood pressure, heart rate, and locomotor activity. The effect of maternal eNOS genotype was made by comparing telem...

Hypoxia is a common intrauterine stressor, often resulting in intrauterine growth restriction and increased risk for cardiovascular disease later in life. The aim of this work was to test the hypothesis that microRNA-210 (miR-210) mediates the detrimental suppression of glucocorticoid receptor (GR) in response to hypoxia in fetal rat cardiomyocytes. Cardiomyocytes isolated from gestational day ...

Mounting evidence from both animal and human studies suggests that the epigenome is in constant drift over the life course in response to stochastic and environmental factors. In humans, this has been highlighted by a small number of studies that have demonstrated discordant DNA methylation patterns in adolescent or adult monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs. However, to date, it remains unclear when su...

The coexistence of intrauterine and neonatal malnutrition and the development of obesity, type 2 diabetes and related comorbidities have been confirmed in a number of studies in humans and animal models. Data from studies in animals suggest that epigenetic changes as a result of altered methylation of the genomic DNA may be responsible for such metabolic patterning. Methionine, an essential ami...

The developing fetus is protected from external environmental influences by maternal tissues. However, these structures have a limited elasticity, such that the fetus must grow in a confined space, constraining its size at the end of pregnancy. Can these constraints modify the morphology of the fetal skeleton? The intensity of these constraints increases between 5 months and birth, making it th...

Low birth weight has been reported to be associated with impaired insulin secretion and insulin resistance. It has been proposed that this association results from fetal programming in response to the intrauterine environment (the thrifty phenotype hypothesis). To elucidate the relationship between birth weight and genetically determined defects in insulin secretion, we measured the birth weigh...

Imprinted, maternally silenced insulin-like growth factor-2 is expressed in both the foetus and placenta and has been shown to have roles in foetal and placental development in animal models. Here we compared mice engineered to be null for the placenta-specific P0 transcript (insulin-like growth factor-2-P0 KO) to mice with disruptions of all four insulin-like growth factor-2 transcripts, and t...