Reproduction Abstracts

Introduction: Both obesity and mood disorders associate with altered glucocorticoid (GC) secretion and action. During pregnancy placenta regulates foetal exposure to maternal GC through enzymatic clearance (HSD-2) and retrograde transfer (ABC transporters). We and others have shown that maternal obesity and/or mood disorders alter placental HSD-2 mRNA level. We therefore hypothesised that placental ABC transporter gene expression is also altered, and investigated this using sa...