ABSTRACT
Epidemiological studies reveal that prenatal adverse environment could cause lower birthweight in offspring and increase the susceptibility to multiple chronic diseases (e.g. metabolic and neuropsychiatric diseases etc.) after maturity. However, the underlying mechanism remains unclarified. The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is a key neuroendocrine axis playing pivotal roles in systemic stress responses before and after birth. It is also an important but vulnerable fetal targeting organ. Previous studies showed that many environmental insults during pregnancy, including external environment and maternal health condition, could affect fetal development in multi-ways via maternal-placental-fetal unit, which leads to the intrauterine programming alteration of HPA axis and the in?creased susceptibility to chronic diseases in adulthood. This article reviews the latest global advances in the etiology of increased susceptibility to adult diseases induced by compromised prenatal environ?ment and the associated intrauterine programming mechanisms by incorporating our recent research findings, and proposes that the fetal over-exposure to maternal glucocorticoids (GC) could bring about the intrauterine neuroendocrine metabolic programming alteration in offspring:the core is the program?ming of GC-insulin-like growth factor 1 axis in multiple organs, and the abnormal epigenetic modification is involved in this programming.