Influence of gestational hypertension on the placental epigenetic profile and its correlation with fetal development

• Grant number: 21/01643-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2021
• End date: March 31, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Medicine - Maternal and Child Health
• Principal Investigator: Rodrigo Augusto da Silva
• Grantee: Mariana Vaz Ferreira Pinto
• Host Institution: Pró-Reitoria de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação. Universidade de Taubaté (UNITAU). Taubaté , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Although gestational hypertensive disorders are the main cause of maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality, the epigenetic mechanisms associated with this disorder are not yet fully understood. Despite intense research and the accelerated progress of knowledge in the field of maternal and fetal epigenetics in recent years, many questions regarding the effect of gestational hypertension on the dynamics of transcriptional epigenetic control of repetitive LINE-1 sequences are still open. In this sense, this proposal aims to correlate the methylation pattern of the promoter region of the repetitive LINE-1 sequences of placental tissue with fetal development in hypertensive pregnant women. For this, pregnant women admitted to the Obstetrics Department of the University Hospital of Taubaté between October 2020 to March 2021, with single pregnancies and non-smokers were recruited and October and December 2020, with single pregnancies and non-smokers will be invited to participate in the study and subdivided according to eligibility criteria proposed by the International Society for the Study in Hypertension and Pregnancy (ISSHP). The realization of this study will allow to expand the current knowledge about how the LINE1 methylation of the placental tissue responds to hypertensive stress and its possible correlation with fetal development.