ABSTRACT
Any adverse event that may occur during the perinatal period can affect the health status of an individual for the rest of their life: this is the basis of the Developmental Origins of Health and Diseases (DOHaD) hypothesis. This means that an individual could be less or more susceptible to pathologies, including cardiovascular disease, depending on what happened during or even before their fetal life. Some of the adverse effects that may take place during the perinatal period are: maternal diet, preterm birth, intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), maternal diabetes, hyperoxia and low birth weight. They can all affect the heart development and function, even in adulthood. For instance, the lower the weight at birth, the higher the mortality risk in adulthood due to coronary heart disease.
Within this context, metabolomics could be a very useful tool to investigate the present and predict the future. Metabolomics is one of the newest “omics” sciences that provide a snapshot of the metabolic profile of an individual (fetuses and neonates included), through the analysis of the metabolites present in several biofluids such as saliva, urine, blood or sweat, or tissues in state of health and disease, and during the administration of a specific drug. The metabolic profile of children and even embryonic cells receiving some drugs or pollutant that experienced some adverse effect at the heart level had been studied through metabolomics. They differed from those that did not experience these adverse effects.
Some interesting metabolomic studies concerning the application of metabolomics in cardiology in animals, but to our knowledge there is only one study to investigate fetal heart in humans. They were able to detect a metabolic profile in the maternal serum of the first trimester whose fetuses will later develop a congenital heart defect.
Another factor that can affect the cardiac function is the microbiota. Fetuses inherit the mother's microbiota. There are several studies that support the theory that the microbiota is directly related to the cardiovascular diseases, especially in case of dysbiosis in which the microbiota composition is altered.
All these findings may provide in the future new therapeutic targets in cardiology in order to improve the treatment of the patients and improve their outcome.
