Abstract 21413: Molecular Basis of Maternal Obesity Induced Fetal Cardiac Contractile Dysfunction

One third of the women at reproductive age are overweight or obese in US. Epidemiological studies in humans and studies on animals have shown that obesity during pregnancy (i.e. maternal obesity, MO) increases incidences of cardiovascular diseases in offspring. Uterus environment is essential for fetal cardiac development and MO as a stress condition in uterus could program cardiovascular disease in prenatal and postnatal offspring. However, the mechanisms of the origin and development of MO-induced cardiovascular disease later in life remain unclear. For this purpose, we use sheep (sharing many similarities with human pregnancy) as a model to study the impact of MO on fetal heart contractile function. Previously, we have demonstrated that MO impaired fetal sheep cardiomyocyte contractility by reducing the peak shortening and velocity of shortening/relengthening and prolonged the time to peak shortening/relengthening. We also found that MO disrupted the calcium homeostasis in fetal cardiomyocytes by incre...