Research progress in influence of prenatal xenobiotics exposure on function of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in offspring / 中国药理学与毒理学杂志

ABSTRACT

As the most important neuroendocrine axis, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis plays an important role in the body's response to stress. Intrauterine exposure to foreign substances can affect the development of the fetus in varied of ways, such as by damaging the mother or the placenta, also can have direct toxic effects on the fetus, thus altering the developmental programming of the fetal HPA axis. As a result, the sensitivity to stress of HPA axis is increased after birth, and the susceptibility to disease is increased in adulthood, including mental diseases such as depression and anxiety, as well as metabolic diseases such as diabetes. The possible mechanism is related to the indirect damage through the placenta and the direct damage through epigenetic modification of fetal genes. In this paper, we reviewed the latest research progress in the abnormal function of the HPA axis and the susceptibility to adult diseases caused by adverse intrauterine environment.