Early- and late-onset preeclampsia and the tissue-specific epigenome of the placenta and newborn.

Introduction: Preeclampsia (PE) carries increased risks of cardiovascular- and metabolic diseases in mothers and offspring during the life course. While the severe early-onset PE (EOPE) phenotype originates from impaired placentation in early pregnancy, late-onset PE (LOPE) is in particular associated with pre-existing maternal cardiovascular- and metabolic risk factors. We hypothesize that PE is associated with altered epigenetic programming of placental and fetal tissues and that these epigenetic changes might elucidate the increased cardiovascular- and metabolic disease susceptibility in PE offspring.

Periconceptional parental conditions and perimembranous ventricular septal defects in the offspring.

Background: The perimembranous ventricular septal (pVSD) defect is the most common congenital heart disease phenotype. Several parental factors are associated with pVSD risk in the offspring. To contribute to the future prevention of pVSDs, we investigated associations with nongenetic parental conditions.