Sex-specific impact of maternal obesity on fetal placental macrophages and cord blood triglycerides.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Maternal obesity is associated with increased risk of offspring obesity and cardiometabolic disease. Altered fetoplacental immune programming is a potential candidate mechanism. Differences in fetal placental macrophages, or Hofbauer cells (HBCs), have been observed in maternal obesity, and lipid metabolism is a key function of resident macrophages that may be deranged in inflammation/immune activation. We sought to test the following hypotheses: 1) maternal obesity is associated with altered HBC density and phenotype in the term placenta and 2) obesity-associated HBC changes are associated with altered placental lipid transport to the fetus. The impact of fetal sex was evaluated in all experiments.

Methods

We quantified the density and morphology of CD163-and C

SUBMITTER: Shook LL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10529163 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature