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Figure 1 | BMC Medicine

Figure 1

From: Ancestral exposure to stress epigenetically programs preterm birth risk and adverse maternal and newborn outcomes

Figure 1

Prenatal, but not gestational stress, hastens parturition and elevates blood glucose levels. (A) Flow chart illustrating the experimental design that tested three generations (F0 through F2) of rats and the F3 offspring in which stress occurred only in the parental generation (S, SN, SNN), across multiple generations (S, SS, SSN) or in each generation (S, SS, SSS). Generations (F0 through F2) of non-stressed rats (N, NN, NNN) served as control. Arrows indicate the transfer of F1 and F2 rats from the stressed breeding line to the non-stress condition, generating the SNN and SSN lines, respectively. (B) Gestational length recordings showed that gestational stress in the parental generation F0 had no effect on pregnancy duration, while prenatal stress reduced gestational length in subsequent generations. Recurrent stress during pregnancy had additive effects on gestational length. (C) Ancestral stress elevated gestational blood glucose levels in animals exposed to multiple generations of stress (F2-SSN or F2-SSS) on gestational day (GD) 18. Elevations persisted to lactational day (LD) 1 in stressed animals whose mothers and grandmothers were also stressed (F2-SSS). S refers to stress, N refers to non-stress control conditions. Asterisks indicate significances: *P <0.05; **P <0.01; ***P<0.001, compared to non-stress controls.

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