ArticleBiology of sex differences2023
Fetal sex differences in placental LCPUFA ether and plasmalogen phosphatidylethanolamine and phosphatidylcholine contents in pregnancies complicated by obesity.
Article in Biology of sex differences, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Maternal obesity remodels nutrient transport transcriptional programs in early mouse embryonic and extraembryonic cell lineages.Molecular metabolism · 2026Article
- Lipid pathways connecting maternal BMI with infant obesity risk.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Fish Oil Supplementation Attenuates Offspring's Neurodevelopmental Changes Induced by a Maternal High-Fat Diet in a Rat Model.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Maternal Plasma Choline Levels Are Positively Correlated with Maternal and Placental Phospholipid-DHA Content in Females with Obesity Who Receive DHA Supplementation.The Journal of nutrition · 2025Article
- A co-ordinated transcriptional programme in the maternal liver supplies long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids to the conceptus using phospholipids.Nature communications · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundWe have previously reported that maternal obesity reduces placental transport capacity for lysophosphatidylcholine-docosahexaenoic acid (LPC-DHA), a preferred form for transfer of DHA (omega 3) to the fetal brain, but only in male fetuses. Phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) and phosphatidylcholine (PC), have either sn-1 ester, ether or vinyl ether (plasmalogen) linkages to primarily unsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids and DHA or arachidonic acid (ARA, omega 6) in the sn-2 position. Whether ether and plasmalogen PC and PE metabolism in placenta impacts transfer to the fetus is unexplored. We hypothesized that ether and plasmalogen PC and PE containing DHA and ARA are reduced in maternal-fetal unit in pregnancies complicated by obesity and these differences are dependent on fetal sex.
methodsIn maternal, umbilical cord plasma and placentas from obese women (11 female/5 male infants) and normal weight women (9 female/7 male infants), all PC and PE species containing DHA and ARA were analyzed by LC-MS/MS. Placental protein expression of enzymes involved in phospholipid synthesis, were determined by immunoblotting. All variables were compared between control vs obese groups and separated by fetal sex, in each sample using the Benjamini-Hochberg false discovery rate adjustment to account for multiple testing.
resultsLevels of ester PC containing DHA and ARA were profoundly reduced by 60-92% in male placentas of obese mothers, while levels of ether and plasmalogen PE containing DHA and ARA were decreased by 51-84% in female placentas. PLA2G4C abundance was lower in male placentas and LPCAT4 abundance was lower solely in females in obesity. In umbilical cord, levels of ester, ether and plasmalogen PC and PE with DHA were reduced by 43-61% in male, but not female, fetuses of obese mothers.
conclusionsWe found a fetal sex effect in placental PE and PC ester, ether and plasmalogen PE and PC containing DHA in response to maternal obesity which appears to reflect an ability of female placentas to adapt to maintain optimal fetal DHA transfer in maternal obesity.
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