BioProject

The late-gestation fetal sheep responds to hypoxia with physiological, neuroendocrine, and cellular responses that aid in fetal survival . More...

The late-gestation fetal sheep responds to hypoxia with physiological, neuroendocrine, and cellular responses that aid in fetal survival . The response of the fetus to hypoxia represents a coordinated effort to maximize oxygen transfer from the mother and minimize wasteful oxygen consumption by the fetus. While there have been many studies aimed at investigating the coordinated physiological and endocrine responses to hypoxia, and while immunohistochemical or in situ hybridization studies have revealed pathways supporting the endocrine function of the pituitary, there is little known about the coordinated cellular response of the pituitary to the hypoxia. The objective of this study was to use transcriptomics and systems analysis to determine significantly altered biological processes in the late gestation ovine fetal pituitary one hour after a 30 minute period of hypoxia, produced by lowering the inspired oxygen content in the maternal inspired gas. We found that the acute response to 30 min of transient hypoxia in the late-gestation fetus results in reduced cellular metabolism and a pattern of gene expression that is consistent with cellular oxygen and ATP starvation. The response is not consistent with gene regulation by HIF1A . Overall design: Chronically catheterized late gestation fetal sheep were subjected to 30 min hypoxia (n=4) or normoxia (n=4). Fetuses were euthanized 60 min after the onset of hypoxia or normoxia and pituitaries removed for microarray analysis. Gene expression was measured using Agilent 15k ovine microarrays. Less...