Prenatal Ambient Air Pollution, Placental Mitochondrial DNA Content, and Birth Weight in the INMA (Spain) and ENVIRONAGE (Belgium) Birth Cohorts.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Mitochondria are sensitive to environmental toxicants due to their lack of repair capacity. Changes in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) content may represent a biologically relevant intermediate outcome in mechanisms linking air pollution and fetal growth restriction.

Objective

We investigated whether placental mtDNA content is a possible mediator of the association between prenatal nitrogen dioxide (NO2) exposure and birth weight.

Methods

We used data from two independent European cohorts: INMA (n = 376; Spain) and ENVIRONAGE (n = 550; Belgium). Relative placental mtDNA content was determined as the ratio of two mitochondrial genes (MT-ND1 and MTF3212/R3319) to two control genes (RPLP0 and ACTB). Effect estimates for individual cohorts and the pooled data set wer

SUBMITTER: Clemente DB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4858384 | biostudies-literature | 2016 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature