IBR-COBRE Phase III

塑料由于其物理特性和便利性而被发现于现代生活的许多方面。他们 每天用于一次性运输和包装材料，化妆品，烹饪和饮食用具， 塑料水瓶、医院用品、家具和服装，甚至实验室研究设备。全球 塑料产量已从1950年的年产150万公吨增加到3.68亿公吨 吨2018年商业塑料的后续环境污染正在迅速成为一个国际性的问题。 这是一个影响人类健康和海洋生态系统健康的问题。夏威夷州是一个 位于太平洋中部的一团，被大量的洋流所包围 在我们的海滩上循环塑料垃圾。随着时间的推移，塑料碎片降解成微塑料， 被人类吸入空气或被沃茨中的海洋生物摄入。令人担忧的是，微塑料碎片 最近在人体组织如肠道和胎盘中被分离出来。 最近，在《自然》杂志上报道了从人类胎盘中分离出微塑料颗粒的物理碎片。 文献，但实际的塑料化合物对母体，胎儿和胎盘生理学的影响是 不太了解。随着人类暴露于微塑料的负担增加，阐明微塑料的必要性也在增加。 微塑料在影响怀孕和妇女健康方面可能发挥的作用。我们将使用夏威夷生殖 生物标本库（HRBR）收集了过去20年的胎盘样本库， 在夏威夷发现的微塑料的数量和质量众所周知， 夏威夷原住民和其他太平洋岛屿妇女的先兆子痫和其他高血压疾病（NHOPI） 和菲律宾传统相比，白人妇女。我们假设，微塑料的存在， 胎盘组织将与我们环境中塑料污染的增加平行， 功能和不良妊娠结局的病理生理学，如先兆子痫和胎儿生长 限制. 我们的目标是表征和量化复杂和复杂胎盘中存在的微塑料， 简单的妊娠，利用收集的胎盘样本的良好表征的生物储存库， 2006-2013使用显微拉曼光谱和其他现代方法。此外，一批新的 将前瞻性收集2022-2023年的新鲜胎盘，以探索（i）MP是否可以穿过胎盘 屏障进入胎儿脐带和脐带血，以及（ii）调查胎盘钙化是否与 与先兆子痫和胎儿生长受限相关的MP积累和组织病理学变化， 包括纤维化、微梗塞和脉络膜血管病。

Plastics are found in many aspects of modern life due to their physical characteristics and convenience. They are used every day for disposable shipping and packaging materials, cosmetics, cooking and eating utensils, plastic water bottles, hospital supplies, furniture and clothing, and even laboratory research equipment. Global plastic production has increased from an annual production of 1.5 million metric tons in 1950 to 368 million metric tons in 2018. Subsequent environmental pollution with commercial plastics is rapidly becoming an international problem that is affecting human health and the health of our marine ecosystem. The State of Hawai’i is a land mass located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that is surrounded by ocean currents that wash large amounts of circulating plastic waste upon our beaches. Over time, plastic debris degrades into microplastics which can be inhaled in the air by humans or ingested by marine life in the waters. Alarmingly, pieces of microplastics have recently been isolated in isolated in human tissue, such as the gut and placenta. The isolation of physical pieces of microplastic particles from human placenta was recently reported in the literature, but the effects that the actual plastic compounds play on maternal, fetal, and placental physiology is poorly understood. As the burden of human exposure to microplastics grows, so does the need to elucidate the role that microplastics may play in affecting pregnancy and women’s health. We will use the Hawaii Reproductive Biospecimen Repository’s (HRBR) collection of banked placenta samples from the past 2 decades to explore the quantity and quality of microplastics found in Hawai’i. It is well known that there are higher rates of preeclampsia and other hypertensive disorders in women with Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Island (NHOPI) and Filipino heritage compared to Caucasian women. We hypothesize that the presence of microplastics in placental tissue will parallel the increase in plastics pollution in our environment and may play a role placental function and the pathophysiology of adverse pregnancy outcomes such as preeclampsia and fetal growth restriction. We aim to characterize and quantify the presence of microplastics in banked placentas from complicated and uncomplicated pregnancies, leveraging the well-characterized biorepository of collected placenta samples from 2006-2013 using Micro-Raman Spectroscopy and other modern methodologies. In addition, a new cohort of fresh placentas from 2022-2023 will be prospectively collected to explore whether (i) MPs can cross the placental barrier into the fetal umbilical cord and umbilical cord blood and (ii) investigate if placental calcification is linked to accumulating MPs and histopathologic changes associated with preeclampsia and fetal growth restriction, including fibrosis, microinfarctions, and chorangiosis.