Maternal Exercise Rescues Fetal Akinesia-Impaired Joint and Bone Development.

ABSTRACT: Fetal movements exert mechanical forces that shape the developing skeleton. Conditions that impair fetal movement can cause skeletal defects, but interventions are limited. Here, we show that maternal wheel running exercise regulates fetal skeletal development in mice. In wild-type fetuses, maternal exercise stimulated joint morphogenesis and bone development. These changes could not be fully explained by altered placental transport. Therefore, we next evaluated the effects of maternal exercise in the Splotch-delayed (Sp^d) mouse model of fetal akinesia, which features intact maternofetal communication, but homozygous mutants lack contractile limb skeletal muscle. Maternal exercise substantially rescued fetal akinesia-impaired joint and bone development and prevented disuse-induc

SUBMITTER: Panebianco CJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12701528 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature