Fetal Cardiac Hypertrophy: Vascular/Metabolic Adaptation

先天性心脏病显著地改变了胎儿的正常生长发育。 此外，患有先天性心脏病的胎儿在子宫内和围产期发病率过高，这可能与胎儿全身和心肌血流动力学受损有关。 胎儿心脏对压力负荷或慢性贫血的适应，如一些先天性心脏病或胎儿病理状态，导致心室质量增加。 关于超负荷的胎儿心脏如何适应其微血管和代谢途径以适应心肌增加的能量需求，知之甚少。 这些代偿性心肌反应可能对即刻和长期生存有重大影响。 在成人心脏中，伴随肥大反应的分子和形态学变化已被广泛研究，包括一些“胎儿”途径的重新激活。 然而，在胎儿心脏中，心室质量增加的分子触发因素以及伴随的血管和代谢反应知之甚少。 我们在胎羊中获得的初步数据表明，在妊娠晚期，许多基因的表达发生了发育变化，这些基因在调节超负荷心脏的血管和代谢反应中可能很重要。 本研究的近期目标是：（1）确定在施加临床重要刺激后胎儿心脏质量增加时，胎儿心脏微血管和代谢适应的分子和形态学基础;（2）研究这些反应在胎儿发育的不同阶段如何调节。从这些研究中获得的信息将提高我们对超负荷胎儿心肌代偿性变化的理解，并有助于指导与使心脏恢复到更“正常”生理状态相关的新研究。 最终的结果是，希望有一个更“正常”的心脏和循环生理的婴儿将有改善的生存率和更少的发病率。

Congenital heart disease significantly alters the normal growth and development of the fetus. Furthermore, fetuses with congenital heart disease have excessively high in utero and perinatal morbidity that may be related to impaired fetal systemic and myocardial hemodynamics. Adaptation of the fetal heart to a pressure load or chronic anemia, as occurs with a number of congenital heart lesions or fetal pathologic states, results in an increase in ventricular mass. Little is known on how the overloaded fetal heart adapts its microvasculature and metabolic pathways to accommodate the increase energetic demands of the myocardium. These compensatory myocardial responses likely have a major influence on both immediate and long term survival. In the adult heart, the molecular and morphologic changes that accompany the hypertrophic response have been extensively studied and include reactivation of a number of "fetal" pathways. However, in the fetal heart, the molecular triggers for increasing ventricular mass and the accompanying vascular and metabolic responses are poorly understood. Our preliminary data obtained in fetal sheep demonstrate that during the third trimester of gestation there are developmental changes in the expression of a number of genes that are likely important in regulating the vascular and metabolic response of the overloaded heart. The immediate goals of the studies outlined in this proposal are: (1) to determine the molecular and morphologic basis of microvascular and metabolic adaptations of the fetal heart as it increases in mass following the imposition of clinically important stimuli; (2) to investigate how these responses are regulated at different stages of fetal development. Information gained from these studies will improve our understanding of the compensatory changes of the overloaded fetal myocardium and help direct new investigations related to returning the heart to more "normal" physiology. The end result is hoped to be that the infant with a more 'normal' heart and circulatory physiology will have improved survival with less morbidity.