Fetus

About: Fetus is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 21567 publications have been published within this topic receiving 646380 citations. The topic is also known as: foetus & fœtus.

Free fatty acid metabolism in fetal and newborn sheep

Abstract: The metabolism of free fatty acids (FFA) was studied in the term ewe, sheep fetus and newborn lamb. The concentration of FFA is about 10 times greater and the concentration of triglyceride fatty ac...

FGF-10 disrupts lung morphogenesis and causes pulmonary adenomas in vivo.

Abstract: Transgenic mice in which fibroblast growth factor (FGF)-10 was expressed in the lungs of fetal and postnatal mice were generated with a doxycycline-inducible system controlled by surfactant protein (SP) C or Clara cell secretory protein (CCSP) promoter elements. Expression of FGF-10 mRNA in the fetal lung caused adenomatous malformations, perturbed branching morphogenesis, and caused respiratory failure at birth. When expressed after birth, FGF-10 caused multifocal pulmonary tumors. FGF-10-induced tumors were highly differentiated papillary and lepidic pulmonary adenomas. Epithelial cells lining the tumors stained intensely for thyroid transcription factor (TTF)-1 and SP-C but not CCSP, indicating that FGF-10 enhanced differentiation of cells to a peripheral alveolar type II cell phenotype. Withdrawal from doxycycline caused rapid regression of the tumors associated with rapid loss of the differentiation markers TTF-1, SP-B, and proSP-C. FGF-10 disrupted lung morphogenesis and induced multifocal pulmonary tumors in vivo and caused reversible type II cell differentiation of the respiratory epithelium.

Effects of hypoxia-induced intrauterine growth restriction on cardiopulmonary structure and function during adulthood

Abstract: Aims Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), a condition affecting 7–15% of all pregnancies, is associated with an increased mortality rate during adulthood. Several animal models have been developed to study the effects of IUGR during adulthood. However, the in vivo characteristics of these models are still unknown. The main aim of this work was to evaluate, in vivo, the effects of IUGR on cardiopulmonary structure and function during adulthood. Methods and results Pregnant Sprague Dawley rats were exposed to hypoxic (12% O2) or normoxic (21% O2) environments between day 15 and 21 of pregnancy. Offspring were raised to 4 or 12 months old when a complete in vivo echocardiographic study was performed. In addition, ex vivo morphometry and isolated working heart experiments were performed. At birth, pups exposed to hypoxia had a smaller body weight and larger heart/body weight than controls. At 4 months of age, there were no significant differences between the groups. At 12 months of age, male but not female offspring exposed to prenatal hypoxia had smaller body weights and signs of left ventricular hypertrophy. In addition, both male and females animals exposed to prenatal hypoxia showed in vivo and ex vivo signs of left ventricular diastolic dysfunction and pulmonary hypertension by 12 months of age. Conclusion Our study demonstrated that hypoxia-induced IUGR is associated with the development of chronic cardiopulmonary dysfunction during ageing. The implication of these findings is the potential usefulness of neonatal diagnosis as a predictor of cardiopulmonary outcomes during adulthood.