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Review
. 2021 Aug 16;22(16):8785.
doi: 10.3390/ijms22168785.

Toxic and Teratogenic Effects of Prenatal Alcohol Exposure on Fetal Development, Adolescence, and Adulthood

Dae D Chung  1 , Marisa R Pinson  1 , Lokeshwar S Bhenderu  1 , Michael S Lai  1 , Rhea A Patel  1 , Rajesh C Miranda  1
Affiliations
Review

Toxic and Teratogenic Effects of Prenatal Alcohol Exposure on Fetal Development, Adolescence, and Adulthood

Dae D Chung et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) can have immediate and long-lasting toxic and teratogenic effects on an individual's development and health. As a toxicant, alcohol can lead to a variety of physical and neurological anomalies in the fetus that can lead to behavioral and other impairments which may last a lifetime. Recent studies have focused on identifying mechanisms that mediate the immediate teratogenic effects of alcohol on fetal development and mechanisms that facilitate the persistent toxic effects of alcohol on health and predisposition to disease later in life. This review focuses on the contribution of epigenetic modifications and intercellular transporters like extracellular vesicles to the toxicity of PAE and to immediate and long-term consequences on an individual's health and risk of disease.

Keywords: alcohol; developmental origin of health and disease; early childhood adversity; epigenetic modification; extracellular vesicles; miRNA; prenatal alcohol exposure.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Extracellular vesicles and prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE). Extracellular vesicles act as a mode of intercellular communication, where PAE can alter the composition and content of these vesicles which in turn has been known to disturb normal biological processes and potentially contribute to PAE’s toxic and teratogenic effects (created with BioRender.com; accessed on 7 July 2021).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Puberty and hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis. The HPG axis works using various organs and hormones that lead to puberty and sexual maturity. The HPG axis is first active at birth and is reactivated during the start of puberty. Both environmental factors and genetic factors have been shown to influence the HPG axis and therefore the onset of puberty (created with BioRender.com; accessed on 7 July 2021).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE)has lifelong consequences on health. The toxic and teratogenic effects of alcohol exposure in utero manifest later in life as increased risk of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis dysfunction, carcinogenesis, cardiovascular disease, and immune system dysfunction resulting from abnormal organogenesis (created with BioRender.com; accessed on 7 July 2021).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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