Back to Search Start Over

Treating the placenta to prevent adverse effects of gestational hypoxia on fetal brain development.

Authors :
Phillips TJ
Scott H
Menassa DA
Bignell AL
Sood A
Morton JS
Akagi T
Azuma K
Rogers MF
Gilmore CE
Inman GJ
Grant S
Chung Y
Aljunaidy MM
Cooke CL
Steinkraus BR
Pocklington A
Logan A
Collett GP
Kemp H
Holmans PA
Murphy MP
Fulga TA
Coney AM
Akashi M
Davidge ST
Case CP
Source :
Scientific reports [Sci Rep] 2017 Aug 22; Vol. 7 (1), pp. 9079. Date of Electronic Publication: 2017 Aug 22.
Publication Year :
2017

Abstract

Some neuropsychiatric disease, including schizophrenia, may originate during prenatal development, following periods of gestational hypoxia and placental oxidative stress. Here we investigated if gestational hypoxia promotes damaging secretions from the placenta that affect fetal development and whether a mitochondria-targeted antioxidant MitoQ might prevent this. Gestational hypoxia caused low birth-weight and changes in young adult offspring brain, mimicking those in human neuropsychiatric disease. Exposure of cultured neurons to fetal plasma or to secretions from the placenta or from model trophoblast barriers that had been exposed to altered oxygenation caused similar morphological changes. The secretions and plasma contained altered microRNAs whose targets were linked with changes in gene expression in the fetal brain and with human schizophrenia loci. Molecular and morphological changes in vivo and in vitro were prevented by a single dose of MitoQ bound to nanoparticles, which were shown to localise and prevent oxidative stress in the placenta but not in the fetus. We suggest the possibility of developing preventative treatments that target the placenta and not the fetus to reduce risk of psychiatric disease in later life.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
2045-2322
Volume :
7
Issue :
1
Database :
MEDLINE
Journal :
Scientific reports
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
28831049
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-06300-1