Zhou, L. et al. Two independent pathways of maternal cell transmission to offspring: through placenta during pregnancy and by breast-feeding after birth.
These growth promoting events require minimum oxygen tension supplied through maternal circulation and exchanged through placenta.
Alternatively, circulating antigen could be transferred through placenta and cause fetus genetic disposition for allergies.
Fig. 3 Substance exchange between the mother and fetus through placenta barrier.
Open image in new window Figure 1 Small non-coding RNAs can transfer through placenta and enter into fetuses.
Open image in new window Figure 2 The synthetic siRNA can pass through placenta and regulate gene expression in the fetal liver.
We hypothesized that the effect of maternal treatment with antigen on the offspring occurred due to antigen transportation through placenta.
Data from our study clearly showed that protein antigens were transported from the mother to the fetus through placenta since antigens conjugated with fluorescent Qdot were visible on the placental tissue as well as on the fetal tissue.
Although anti-HBs also pass through placenta theoretically, all the mothers were anti-HBs.
In our study, animals were only indirectly exposed through placenta and milk, and BPA exposure was stopped at weaning.
