Reversal of maternal obesity attenuates hypoxia and improves placental development in the preeclamptic-like BPH/5 mouse model.

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Women with obesity have higher risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes, including preeclampsia (PE). Late-gestational hypertension, aberrant fetoplacental development, and fetal growth restriction (FGR), hallmarks of PE, are observed spontaneously in BPH/5 mice. Similar to obese preeclamptic women, BPH/5 mice have higher visceral white adipose tissue (WAT) and circulating leptin. We hypothesized that attenuation of maternal obesity and serum leptin in pregnant BPH/5 mice will improve fetoplacental development by decreasing hypoxia markers and leptin expression at the maternal-fetal interface. To test this hypothesis, BPH/5 mice were fed ad libitum (lib) and pair-fed (PF) to C57 ad lib controls beginning at embryonic day (e) 0.5. Hypoxia-related genes, hypoxia inducible factor (Hif) 1α, stem cell factor (Scf), heme oxygenase-1 (Ho-1), leptin (Lep), and leptin receptor (LepR) were assessed in e7.5 implantation sites. BPH/5 ad lib had 1.5 to 2-fold increase in Hif1α , Scf , and Ho-1 mRNA and a greater than 3-fold increase in leptin mRNA vs . C57 that was attenuated with PF. Exogenous leptin promoted Hif1α and Ho-1 mRNA expression in e7.5 decidua in vitro . While hypoxic conditions in vitro did not change decidual leptin mRNA. Furthermore, BPH/5 PF mice demonstrated improved fetal and placental outcomes later in gestation, with greater placental vascular area by e18.5 and attenuation of

Evidence level

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

Browse all related research

Filter the research library by this study's title keywords, author, or publication year.