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Environmental Disease
Published in Gary S. Moore, Kathleen A. Bell, Living with the Earth, 2018
Gary S. Moore, Kathleen A. Bell
Just as chemicals ingested by a mother-to-be during critical window of an embryo’s development can cause physical abnormalities, so too can the absence of certain important nutritional compounds. The absence of folic acid, a B vitamin, from a pregnant woman’s diet is associated with neural tube defects including spina bifida and anencephaly. Spina bifida is characterized by the protrusion of a portion of the spinal cord from the spinal column, while anencephaly is a disorder in which most of the brain is absent. Consequently, the simple addition of this vitamin to the diet of a woman about to conceive can prevent a seriously debilitating and often fatal disease.
Maternal occupation and the risk of neural tube defects in offspring
Published in Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health, 2018
Jihye Kim, Peter H. Langlois, Laura E. Mitchell, A. J. Agopian
Neural tube defects (NTDs) are among the most common birth defects and include anomalies of the brain (anencephaly) and spine (spina bifida). Several factors have been found to be associated with the risk of NTDs, including infant sex,1 family history of NTDs,2 maternal race/ethnicity,3 obesity,4,5 pregestational and gestational diabetes,6 and insufficient multivitamin/folic acid intake.7,8 However, the majority of risk for NTDs cannot be accounted for by recognized factors.9
Biomolecules of Similar Charge Polarity Form Hybrid Gel
Published in Soft Materials, 2022
Pankaj Pandey, Vinod Kumar Aswal, Joachim Kohlbrecher, Himadri B. Bohidar
FA is the synthetic form of folate, an important member of vitamin B family. Structurally, FA is in an extended conformation with the pteridine ring (fused pyrimidine and pyrazine rings) in the keto form where the C(4) oxygen and N(10) atoms are located on the same side of the molecule.[7] Very often the FA pteridine and phenyl rings interact in a stacking manner which lead to the of association these groups to form a complex of folate, dihydrofolate reductase, and reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate. FA with the molecular formula of C19H19, has a nominal molecular weight of ≈ 441 Da. The crystal and molecular structure of FA has been determined by x-ray diffraction.[8] Because of the intrinsic hydrophobicity of FA, its water dispersibility is marginal. By the manipulation of hydrophobicity, native FA, which behaves as a super-gelator in DMSO–water binary solvent, can be made to generate a supramolecular gel. FA supramolecular gels made in water-organic solvent binary mixtures have been reported.[9] It has been realized that native FA can serve as an efficient molecular building block, and as a super-gelator to produce multi-responsive soft materials.[10,11] Folate plays an important role for a range of regulatory functions in the human body. It is required for the synthesis and repair of DNA and other genetic material, production and maintenance of new cells including RBCs, and it is also necessary for cell division. Folate deficiency can lead to severe anemia, and during pregnancy, to neural tube irregularities, such as spina bifida and anencephaly. FA derived hydrogel enhances the survival and promotes therapeutic efficacy of iPS Cells for acute myocardial infarction.[12] The hierarchical self-assembly of FA supramolecular hydrogels offer robust mechanical elastic modulus comparable to synthetic double-network polymer gels.[13]