IBR-COBRE Phase III

塑料由于其物理特性和方便性，在现代生活的许多方面都有应用。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、家具和衣服，甚至实验室研究设备。全球 塑料产量从1950年的150万公吨增加到3.68亿公吨 2018年的产量。随之而来的商业塑料对环境的污染正在迅速成为一个国际问题 这是一个影响人类健康和我们海洋生态系统健康的问题。夏威夷是一片土地 位于太平洋中部的海团，被大量冲刷的洋流包围 在我们的海滩上循环使用塑料垃圾。随着时间的推移，塑料碎片会降解成微塑料，这种塑料可以 在空气中被人类吸入或被水域中的海洋生物摄取。令人担忧的是，微塑料碎片已经 最近在人体组织中被分离出来，如肠道和胎盘。 从人类胎盘中分离出微塑料颗粒的物理碎片最近被报道在 但实际的塑料化合物对母体、胎儿和胎盘生理的影响是 人们对此知之甚少。随着人类接触微塑料的负担增加，也有必要阐明 微塑料在影响怀孕和妇女健康方面可能发挥的作用。我们会用夏威夷的生殖器 Biospecimen Repository(HRBR)收集过去20年储存的胎盘样本以探索 夏威夷发现的微塑料的数量和质量。众所周知，有更高的比率 夏威夷原住民和其他太平洋岛屿(诺皮岛)妇女的先兆子痫和其他高血压疾病 与高加索女性相比，菲律宾人的血统更高。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，并可能发挥胎盘的作用 先兆子痫和胎儿生长等不良妊娠结局的功能和病理生理 限制。 我们的目标是表征和量化储存胎盘中微塑料的存在，从复杂的和 不复杂的怀孕，利用收集的胎盘样本的良好特征的生物库 2006-2013年，使用微拉曼光谱和其他现代方法。此外，一个新的队列 2022年至2023年的新鲜胎盘将被前瞻性地收集，以探索(I)MPS是否能穿过胎盘 进入胎儿脐带和脐带血的屏障，以及(Ii)调查胎盘钙化是否与 与子痫前期和胎儿生长受限相关的MPS积聚和组织病理学改变， 包括纤维化、微梗塞和脉络膜病。

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.