The baby’s genes controlled by the father tend to promote fetal growth and those controlled by the mother tend to limit fetal growth. The findings by researchers from the Centre for Trophoblast Research at Cambridge’s Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience and the Medical Research Council Metabolic Diseases Unit, part of the Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science, have been published in Cell Metabolism. Although pregnancy is largely cooperative, there is a big arena for potential conflict between the mother and the baby, with imprinted genes and the placenta thought to play key roles.” “Genes controlled by the father are ‘greedy’ and ‘selfish’ and will tend to manipulate maternal resources for the benefit of the fetuses, so to grow them big and fittest. Professor Amanda Sferruzzi-Perri, Professor in Fetal and Placental Physiology, a Fellow of St John’s College and co-senior author of the paper, said: “It’s the first direct evidence that a gene inherited from the father is signalling to the mother to divert nutrients to the fetus.”ĭr Miguel Constancia, MRC Investigator based at the Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science and co-senior author of the paper, said: “The baby’s remote control system is operated by genes that can be switched on or off depending on whether they are a ‘dad’s’ or ‘mum’s’ gene’, the so-called imprinted genes. In pregnant mice, scientists selectively altered the signalling cells in the placenta that tell mothers to allocate nutrients to her developing fetuses. The placenta is a vital organ that develops with the fetus in pregnant women and other female mammals to support the developing fetus. The mother’s body wants the baby to survive but needs to keep enough glucose and fats circulating in her system for her own health, to be able to deliver the baby, breastfeed and to reproduce again.Ī new study from the University of Cambridge published today examines how the placenta communicates with the mother through the release of hormones so she will accommodate her baby’s growth.
The unborn baby ‘remote controls’ its mother’s metabolism so the two are in a nutritional tug of war.
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