School of Paediatrics and Child Health Research, University of Western Australia, PO Box D184, Princess Margaret Hospital, Perth, WA 6001, Australia.
Proc Nutr Soc. 2010 Aug;69(3):366-72. doi: 10.1017/S0029665110001874. Epub 2010 Jun 29.
Events and exposures in pregnancy can have critical effects on fetal development with lasting implications for subsequent health and disease susceptibility. There is growing interest in how modern environmental changes influence fetal immune development and contribute to the recent epidemic of allergy and other immune disorders. Rising rates of allergic disease in early infancy, together with pre-symptomatic differences in immune function at birth, suggest that antenatal events play a predisposing role in the development of disease. A number of environmental exposures in pregnancy can modify neonatal immune function including diet, microbial exposure and maternal smoking, and there is emerging evidence from animal models that these factors may have epigenetic effects on immune gene expression and disease susceptibility. Furthermore, functional genetic polymorphisms also alter individual vulnerability to the effects of these environmental exposures, highlighting the complexity of gene-environmental interactions in this period. All these observations underscore the need for ongoing research to understand the pathogenesis and rising incidence of disease in the hope of better strategies to reverse this.
妊娠期间的事件和暴露可能对胎儿发育产生重大影响，并对随后的健康和疾病易感性产生持久影响。人们越来越关注现代环境变化如何影响胎儿免疫发育，并导致过敏和其他免疫紊乱的流行。婴儿早期过敏疾病的发病率上升，加上出生时免疫功能的无症状差异，表明产前事件在疾病发展中起着诱发作用。妊娠期间的许多环境暴露可以改变新生儿的免疫功能，包括饮食、微生物暴露和母亲吸烟，并且有来自动物模型的新证据表明，这些因素可能对免疫基因表达和疾病易感性产生表观遗传效应。此外，功能性遗传多态性也改变了个体对这些环境暴露影响的脆弱性，突出了这一时期基因-环境相互作用的复杂性。所有这些观察结果都强调了需要进行持续研究，以了解疾病的发病机制和发病率上升的原因，以期找到更好的策略来扭转这种趋势。
