Programación epigenética placentaria en restricción del crecimiento intrauterino

Paola Casanello, José A. Castro-Rodríguez, Ricardo Uauy, Bernardo J. Krause

Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) is a perinatal condition affecting foetal growth, with under the 10th percentile of the weight curve expected for gestational age. This condition has been associated with higher cardiovascular and metabolic risk and post-natal obesity. There are also major changes in placental function, and particularly in a key molecule in this regulation, nitric oxide. The synthesis of nitric oxide has numerous control mechanisms and competition with arginase for their common substrate, the amino acid L-arginine. This competition is reflected in various vascular diseases and particularly in the endothelium of the umbilical vessels of babies with IUGR. Along with this, there is regulation at the epigenetic level, where methylation in specific regions of some gene promoters, such as the nitric oxide synthase, regulating their expression. It is currently of great interest to understand the mechanisms by which diseases such as IUGR may be conditioned, particularly by maternal nutritional and metabolic conditions, and epigenetic mechanisms that could eventually be modifiable, and thus a focus of interest for health interventions.