Shallie Philemon Dauda, Naicker Thajasvarie
Optics and Imaging Centre, School of Laboratory Medicine and Medical Sciences, Nelson Mandela Medical School, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.
Optics and Imaging Centre, School of Laboratory Medicine and Medical Sciences, Nelson Mandela Medical School, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.
Int J Dev Neurosci. 2019 Apr;73:41-49. doi: 10.1016/j.ijdevneu.2019.01.003. Epub 2019 Jan 8.
During development, the placenta can be said to be the most important organ, however, the most poorly researched. There is currently a broader understanding of how specific insults during development affect the fetal brain, and also the importance of placental signaling in neurodevelopmental programming. Epigenetic responses to maternal and fetal signals are an obvious candidate for transforming early life inputs into long-term programmatic outcomes. As a mediator of maternal and environmental signals to the developing fetus, epigenetic processes within the placenta are particularly powerful such that alterations of placental gene expression, downstream function, and signalling during foetal development have the potential for dramatic changes in developmental programming.
In this article, we reviewed emerging evidence for a placental role in prenatal neurodevelopmental programming with a specific focus on nutrient and prenatal stress signals integration into chromatin changes; this new understanding, we hope will provide the means for lowering developmentally based disorder risk, and new therapeutic targets for treatment in adulthood.
Based on this review, the placenta is a potent micro-environmental player in neurodevelopment as it orchestrates a series of complex maternal-foetal interactions. Maternal insults to this microenvironment will impair these processes and disrupt foetal brain development resulting in the prenatal programming of neurodevelopmental disorders. These findings should inspire advance animal model and human research drive to appraise gene-environment impacts during pregnancy that will target the developmental cause of adult-onset mental disorders.
在发育过程中，胎盘可谓是最重要的器官，然而，却是研究最少的器官。目前对于发育过程中的特定损伤如何影响胎儿大脑，以及胎盘信号在神经发育编程中的重要性，人们有了更广泛的认识。对母体和胎儿信号的表观遗传反应显然是将早期生命输入转化为长期程序化结果的一个候选因素。作为向发育中的胎儿传递母体和环境信号的介质，胎盘内的表观遗传过程尤为强大，以至于胎儿发育过程中胎盘基因表达、下游功能和信号传导的改变有可能导致发育编程发生巨大变化。
在本文中，我们回顾了胎盘在产前神经发育编程中作用的新证据，特别关注营养和产前应激信号整合到染色质变化中；我们希望这种新认识将为降低基于发育的疾病风险提供方法，并为成年期治疗提供新的治疗靶点。
基于这篇综述，胎盘在神经发育中是一个强大的微环境参与者，因为它协调了一系列复杂的母婴相互作用。母体对这个微环境的损伤会损害这些过程，扰乱胎儿大脑发育，导致神经发育障碍的产前编程。这些发现应该激发进一步的动物模型和人体研究，以评估孕期基因-环境的影响，这将针对成人期精神障碍的发育原因。
