Vitamin D sufficiency has a limited effect on placental structure and histopathology: placental phenotypes in the VDAART trial.

Vitamin D sufficiency has a limited effect on placental structure and histopathology: placental phenotypes in the VDAART trial. Endocrinology. 2020 Apr 09;: Authors: He M, Mirzakhani H, Chen L, Wu R, Litonjua AA, Bacharier L, Weiss ST, Nelson DM Abstract Vitamin D insufficiency during pregnancy is widespread. The effects of active vitamin D on the human placenta in vivo are unknown. We test the hypotheses that 25(OH) D sufficiency (arbitrarily defined as 25(OH)D ≥ 32 ng/mL) modulates placental structure and function in vivo in a population of women whose offspring are at risk for childhood asthma, and that placental pathology is more common in offspring that evolve asthma at age three. Pregnant volunteers in the St. Louis, MO, cohort of The Vitamin D Antenatal Asthma Reduction Trial (VDAART, NIH grant #HL091528) participated in a nested case-control study and consented for the study of placentas after delivery. Maternal concentrations of 25(OH)D were measured at trial entry and in the third trimester. The histopathology of the placentas from women with sufficient 25(OH)D, vs. insufficient, showed no clinically significant differences but morphometry revealed villi of women with sufficient 3rd trimester 25(OH)D had a higher villous surface density. Notably, analyses of transcripts, extracted from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded specimens, revealed higher expression of INTS9, vWF, MACC1, ARMS2, and diminished expression of the CNTN5...
Source: Endocrinology - Category: Endocrinology Authors: Tags: Endocrinology Source Type: research