Guangzhou doctors published a study in Nature to reveal the influence of intrauterine environment on the health of offspring.
Pregnancy is a wonderful process, and the growth and development of the fetus are influenced by the maternal intrauterine environment and the fetus’s own heredity. However, there are still many questions to be answered about what role the intrauterine environment and genetic effects play in the growth and development of the fetus.
In the early morning of February 1st, Beijing time, the scientific research team of Guangzhou Women and Children Medical Center (hereinafter referred to as "Guangzhou Women and Children") published an article in the international journal Nature, revealing the influence of human genetic factors and maternal intrauterine environment on the health of offspring, providing a new paradigm and methodological support for better understanding the intergenerational transmission of maternal and child health, and also for studying intrauterine exposure (intrauterine environment, nutrition and other substances passed from mother to fetus belong to intrauterine exposure)
Provide personalized information for precision medical care
"The early stage of life is an important window for adult chronic disease prevention and control." Qiu Wei, director of the Women’s Health Department of Guangzhou Women and Children Medical Center and head of the Guangzhou birth cohort, said that to do a good job in the prevention and control of chronic diseases, we must first answer whether bad environmental exposure in early life will lead to diseases and what are the pathogenic factors.
Whenever we talk about cardiovascular diseases, everyone will talk about "three highs", which are related to fat metabolism. In the early stage, through the Guangzhou birth cohort study, that is, some people were selected as samples, and medical data related to development, growth and health were collected regularly from the fetal period to adulthood, and long-term prospective research was carried out. The scientific research team found that the fat metabolism of newborns was related to the fetal growth in each pregnancy stage.
The research team thought: Will the nutrients, blood lipid and blood sugar levels taken by the mother during pregnancy affect the baseline of fetal growth and birth fat metabolism? However, using traditional research methods, there is no correlation between these factors.
How to open the "black box" of pregnancy? Guangzhou birth cohort selected 4053 subjects, clearly stripped off the effects of intrauterine environment and heredity on fetal growth and development, and made clear the potential causal relationship between pregnancy exposure and fetal growth.
Qiu Wei said that the research team has newly discovered the unique regulatory genes of East Asian people through research, revealing that the genes that regulate lipid metabolism in the human body may exert genetic effects at a specific age.
Based on these achievements, in the future, children and adults may have more accurate methods to intervene in chronic diseases such as obesity as early as possible. "More personalized information helps to carry out precision medical care. For common diseases, we can carry out corresponding treatment according to individual conditions." Qiu Wei said.
Provide the possibility for the early warning gateway to move forward.
Many women will have itchy skin after pregnancy. In Guangdong, some people call it "fetal poison" and think that pregnant women are "getting angry". In fact, it may be that pregnant women have high total bile acid and suffer from cholestasis.
Xia Huimin, academic leader and professor of pediatric surgery in Guangzhou Women and Children Medical Center, said that in this study, the research team found a new gene mutation (SLC10A1,p.Ser267Phe) related to cholestasis, which participated in the metabolism of bile in the whole liver and may cause or aggravate the degree of primary jaundice in newborns.
In addition, this study found for the first time that there was a causal relationship between maternal total bile acid during pregnancy and the birth length of offspring. Every time maternal total bile acid increased by 1mmol/L, the birth length of offspring decreased by 0.42cm.
Zhou Wenhao, director and dean of Guangzhou Women and Children Medical Center, explained that the cholestasis of pregnancy not only affects the development of the fetus in the uterus, but also leads to poor adaptability to the outside of the uterus after birth and high risk of death.
"If candidate genes are found at an early stage and detected as early targets, doctors can use drugs to reduce the total bile acid of pregnant women as early as possible, alleviate the clinical symptoms of pregnant women and improve the growth and development of children." Zhou Wenhao said.
Qiu Wei said that clinicians now prescribe drugs for pregnant women with itchy skin. In the future, hospitals can consider better solutions, such as testing pregnant women with genetic mutations before pregnancy, early prevention or accurate medication.
Xia Huimin introduced that 12 years ago, Guangfuer established the Guangzhou Birth Queue, which is the birth queue with the largest number of people in the country and relatively perfect follow-up management. By the end of 2023, more than 58,000 families had joined the group, and the biological sample bank had accumulated more than 2.9 million people.
Zhou Wenhao said that in the future, according to the data of Guangzhou birth cohort, more factors that may affect the health of pregnant women during pregnancy and children’s growth and development will be discovered. "We should move the early warning barrier forward and better protect mothers and fetuses through genetic testing, environmental monitoring and metabolite monitoring during pregnancy."
South+reporter Li Sixuan
Correspondent Zhou Mi Li Wen