Penn Team Links Placental Marker of Prenatal Stress to Brain Dysfunction

http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/news/penn-team-links-placental-marker-prenatal-stress-brain-mitochondrial-dysfunction

Penn Team Links Placental Marker of Prenatal Stress to Brain Mitochondrial Dysfunction

Media Contact:Katherine Unger Baillie
June 18, 2014

When a woman experiences a stressful event early in pregnancy, the risk of her child developing autism spectrum disorders or schizophrenia increases. Yet how maternal stress is transmitted to the brain of the developing fetus, leading to these problems in neurodevelopment, is poorly understood.

New findings by University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine scientists suggest that an enzyme found in the placenta is likely playing an important role. This enzyme, O-linked-N-acetylglucosamine transferase, or OGT, translates maternal stress into a reprogramming signal for the brain before birth.

“By manipulating this one gene, we were able to recapitulate many aspects of early prenatal stress,” said Tracy L. Bale, senior author on the paper and a professor in the Department of Animal Biology at Penn Vet. “OGT seems to be serving a role as the ‘canary in the coal mine,’ offering a readout of mom’s stress to change the baby’s developing brain.”

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