Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Pediatr. May 8, 2016; 5(2): 172-181
Published online May 8, 2016. doi: 10.5409/wjcp.v5.i2.172
Fetal programming and early identification of newborns at high risk of free radical-mediated diseases
Serafina Perrone, Antonino Santacroce, Anna Picardi, Giuseppe Buonocore
Serafina Perrone, Antonino Santacroce, Anna Picardi, Giuseppe Buonocore, Department of Molecular and Developmental Medicine, University of Siena, 53100 Siena, Italy
Author contributions: All authors equally contributed to this paper for conception, design of the study, literature review, analysis, drafting, critical revision, editing, and final approval of the final version.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors confirm that this article content has no conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Serafina Perrone, MD, PhD, Department of Molecular and Developmental Medicine, University of Siena, Policlinico Santa Maria alle Scotte, Viale Bracci 36, 53100 Siena, Italy. saraspv@yahoo.it
Telephone: +39-0577-586542 Fax: +39-0577-586182
Received: August 29, 2015
Peer-review started: September 6, 2015
First decision: October 8, 2015
Revised: January 25, 2016
Accepted: February 14, 2016
Article in press: February 16, 2016
Published online: May 8, 2016
Processing time: 247 Days and 17.7 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: The adverse outcomes on the offspring born from altered gestation are already known. The consequences of these perturbations have been demonstrated even after many decades from birth. In this review we summarize gestational conditions associated to fetal programming and elucidate the mechanisms involved in such kind of occurrence. We also describe to what extent oxidative stress (OS) is involved in a very wide spectrum of genetic, metabolic, and cellular responses, through the gene expression regulation, and cell growth modulation. By virtue of these properties, OS has been nominated as the lowest common denominator of adult disease programming.