As a group we responded to the feedback by reevaluating what we need to do. We have come up with topics to discuss along with reorganizing how entire article so each of us can have an input. Other possible improvements are to divide and conquer so we will not be working on the same topics and have the same articles. We also realized that the bold subjects we wanted to discuss were kind of vague, so were going to find more in depth topics that support how teratogens work.
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Reorganize content - some parts redundant or should be (or would better be) grouped with another section
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Teratology is the study of abnormalities of physiological development in organisms during their life span. It is a sub-discipline in medical genetics which focuses on the classification of congenital abnormalities in dysmorphology. These may include growth retardation, delayed mental development or other congenital disorders without any structural malformations. The related term developmental toxicity includes all manifestations of abnormal development that are caused by environmental insult. [1]
The term was borrowed in 1842 from the French tératologie, where it was formed in 1830 from the Greek τέρας teras ( word stem τέρατ- terat-), meaning "sign sent by the gods, portent, marvel, monster", and -ologie ( -ology), used to designate a discourse, treaty, science, theory, or study of some topic. [2]
Old literature referred to abnormalities of all kinds under the Latin term Lusus naturae (lit. "freak of nature"). As early as the 17th century, teratology referred to a discourse on prodigies and marvels of anything so extraordinary as to seem abnormal. In the 19th century, it acquired a meaning more closely related to biological deformities, mostly in the field of botany. Currently, its most instrumental meaning is that of the medical study of teratogenesis, congenital malformations or individuals with significant malformations. Historically, people have used many pejorative terms to describe/label cases of significant physical malformations. In the 1960s David W. Smith of the University of Washington Medical School (one of the researchers who became known in 1973 for the discovery of fetal alcohol syndrome), [3] popularized the term teratology. With the growth of understanding of the origins of birth defects, the field of teratology as of 2015 [update] overlaps with other fields of science, including developmental biology, embryology, and genetics.
Until the 1940s teratologists regarded birth defects as primarily hereditary. In 1941 the first well-documented cases of environmental agents being the cause of severe birth defects were reported. [4]
Along with this new awareness of the in utero vulnerability of the developing mammalian embryo came the development and refinement of The Six Principles of Teratology put forth by Jim Wilson in 1959 and in his monograph Environment and Birth Defects. [5] These principles guide the study and understanding of teratogenic agents and their effects on developing organisms:
Studies designed to test the teratogenic potential of environmental agents use animal model systems (e.g., rat, mouse, rabbit, dog, and monkey). Early teratologists exposed pregnant animals to environmental agents and observed the fetuses for gross visceral and skeletal abnormalities. While this is still part of the teratological evaluation procedures today, the field of Teratology is moving to a more molecular level, seeking the mechanism(s) of action by which these agents act. One example of this is the use of mammalian animal models to evaluate the molecular role of teratogens in the development of embryonic populations, such as the neural crest, [6] which can lead to the development of neurocristopathies. Genetically modified mice are commonly used for this purpose. In addition, pregnancy registries are large, prospective studies that monitor exposures women receive during their pregnancies and record the outcome of their births. These studies provide information about possible risks of medications or other exposures in human pregnancies. Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) can produce craniofacial malformations, a phenotype that is visible in Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Current evidence suggests that craniofacial malformations occur via: apoptosis of neural crest cells, [7] interference with neural crest cell migration, [8] [9] as well as the disruption of sonic hedgehog (shh) signaling. [10]
Teratogens are substances that may cause birth defects via a toxic effect on an embryo or fetus. [11] Known teratogens include: retinol, thalidomide, [12] mercury, [13] alcohol, [14] lead, [15] polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), [16] and 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin. [17]
Understanding how a teratogen causes its effect is not only important in preventing congenital abnormalities but also has the potential for developing new therapeutic drugs safe for use with pregnant women.Causes of teratogenesis can broadly be classified as:
In humans, vaccination has become readily available, and is important to the prevention of some diseases like polio, rubella, smallpox and COVID-19, among others. There has been no association between congenital malformations and vaccination, as shown in Finland in which expecting mothers received the oral polio vaccine and saw no difference in infant outcomes than mothers who had not received the vaccine. [19] However, it is still not recommended to vaccinate for polio while pregnant unless there is risk of infection. [20] Another important implication of this includes the ability to get the influenza vaccine while pregnant. During the 1918 and 1957 influenza pandemics, mortality from influenza in pregnant women was 45%. Munoz et al. demonstrated that there was no adverse outcome observed in the new infants or mothers. [21]
In humans, congenital disorders resulted in about 510,000 deaths globally in 2010. [22]
About 3% of newborns have a "major physical anomaly", meaning a physical anomaly that has cosmetic or functional significance. [23] Congenital disorders are responsible for 20% of infant deaths. [24]Teratology in humans changes the growth of a developing fetus. A few reasons these birth defects can occur are because of alcohol, chemicals, drugs. This comes from a woman that is an addict and cannot quit smoking or doing drugs. A result of partaking in these harmful substances can be miscarriage, stillbirth, or preterm labor which can result in the fetus being addicted to what the mother was addicted too. There are about 3%-5% of newborns that have observable anatomical anomalies. This means that babies can have down syndrome, heart defects, and neural tubing defects.
Evidence for congenital deformities found in the fossil record is studied by paleopathologists, specialists in ancient disease and injury. Fossils bearing evidence of congenital deformity are scientifically significant because they can help scientists infer the evolutionary history of life's developmental processes. For instance, because a Tyrannosaurus rex specimen has been discovered with a block vertebra, it means that vertebrae have been developing the same basic way since at least the most recent common ancestor of dinosaurs and mammals. Other notable fossil deformities include a hatchling specimen of the bird-like dinosaur, Troodon, the tip of whose jaw was twisted. [25] Another notably deformed fossil was a specimen of the choristodere Hyphalosaurus, which had two heads- the oldest known example of polycephaly. [26]
Thalidomide is a teratogen known to be significantly detrimental to the development of certain body parts and organs in the body such as the eyes or the heart. [27] During embryogenesis it is observed that many different organisms experience different impacts of teratogens on organ morphogenesis and development overall. One of these organisms that are popular to study the malformations created by thalidomide are chick embryos. It is observed that thalidomide induces limb outgrowth deformities through inducing oxidative stress and thereby enhancing genetic signaling through irregular expression of bone morphogenic proteins, Bmp. [28] According to a study that was performed in 2007, the results revealed that with the increased oxidative stress thalidomide promotes, the up-regulation of the Bmp target gene and Wnt antagonist (Dkk1) this in turn inhibited canonical Wnt/B-catenin signaling and an increase in cell death was observed. The thalidomide induced cell death was significantly reduced when the introduction of inhibitors against Bmp, Dkk1 (Wnt antagonist), and Gsk3B (B-catenin antagonist) was administered into the chick embryos and cell death of the limb tissue was decreased. [29] These results helped to conclude that these three pathways significantly impacted by thalidomide for chick limb development and that the teratogenic outcomes of the limb development deficiencies thalidomide creates can be reversed if these three pathways are inhibited.
Retinoic acid (RA) is significant in embryonic development. It induces the function of limb patterning of a developing embryo in species such as mice and other vertebrate limbs [30] For example, during the process of regenerating a newt limb an increased amount of RA moves the limb more proximal to the distal blastoma and the extent of the proximalization of the limb increases with the amount of RA present during the regeneration process. [31] A study looked at the RA activity intracellularly in mice in relation to human regulating CYP26 enzymes which play a critical role in metabolizing RA. [32] This study also helps to reveal that RA is significant in various aspects of limb development in an embryo, however irregular control or excess amounts of RA can have teratogenic impacts causing malformations of limb development. They looked specifically at CYP26B1 which is highly expressed in regions of limb development in mice. [33] The lack of CYP26B1 was shown to cause a spread of RA signal towards the distal section of the limb causing proximo-distal patterning irregularities of the limb. [34] Not only did it show spreading of RA but a deficiency in the CYP26B1 also showed an induced apoptosis effect in the developing mouse limb but delayed chondrocyte maturation, which are cells that secrete a cartilage matrix which is significant for limb structure. [35] They also looked at what happened to development of the limbs in wild type mice, that are mice with no CYP26B1 deficiencies, but which had an excess amount of RA present in the embryo. The results showed a similar impact to limb patterning if the mice did have the CYP26B1 deficiency meaning that there was still a proximal distal patterning deficiency observed when excess RA was present. [36] This then concludes that RA plays the role of a morphogen to identify proximal distal patterning of limb development in mice embryos and that CYP26B1 is significant to prevent apoptosis of those limb tissues to further proper development of mice limbs in vivo.
In botany, teratology investigates the theoretical implications of abnormal specimens. For example, the discovery of abnormal flowers—for example, flowers with leaves instead of petals, or flowers with staminoid pistils—furnished important evidence for the " foliar theory", the theory that all flower parts are highly specialized leaves. [37]
Plants can have mutations that leads to different types of deformations such as:
Galls are not part of plant teratology, as they are formed due to external factors like insects bites or parasites.
Until 1940, it was assumed that congenital defects were caused primarily by hereditary factors. In 1941, the first well-documented cases were reported that an environmental agent (rubella virus) could produce severe anatomic anomalies.
Although no adverse effects of IPV have been documented among pregnant women or their fetuses, vaccination of pregnant women should be avoided on theoretical grounds. However, if a pregnant woman is at increased risk for infection and requires immediate protection against polio, IPV can be administered in accordance with the recommended schedules for adults.
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link)
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cite journal}}
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link)
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cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
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As a group we responded to the feedback by reevaluating what we need to do. We have come up with topics to discuss along with reorganizing how entire article so each of us can have an input. Other possible improvements are to divide and conquer so we will not be working on the same topics and have the same articles. We also realized that the bold subjects we wanted to discuss were kind of vague, so were going to find more in depth topics that support how teratogens work.
![]() | This is the sandbox page where you will draft your initial Wikipedia contribution.
If you're starting a new article, you can develop it here until it's ready to go live. If you're working on improvements to an existing article, copy only one section at a time of the article to this sandbox to work on, and be sure to use an edit summary linking to the article you copied from. Do not copy over the entire article. You can find additional instructions here. Remember to save your work regularly using the "Publish page" button. (It just means 'save'; it will still be in the sandbox.) You can add bold formatting to your additions to differentiate them from existing content. |
Reorganize content - some parts redundant or should be (or would better be) grouped with another section
Make definitions/concept descriptions broader
Fix and add sources
Other improvements
Teratology is the study of abnormalities of physiological development in organisms during their life span. It is a sub-discipline in medical genetics which focuses on the classification of congenital abnormalities in dysmorphology. These may include growth retardation, delayed mental development or other congenital disorders without any structural malformations. The related term developmental toxicity includes all manifestations of abnormal development that are caused by environmental insult. [1]
The term was borrowed in 1842 from the French tératologie, where it was formed in 1830 from the Greek τέρας teras ( word stem τέρατ- terat-), meaning "sign sent by the gods, portent, marvel, monster", and -ologie ( -ology), used to designate a discourse, treaty, science, theory, or study of some topic. [2]
Old literature referred to abnormalities of all kinds under the Latin term Lusus naturae (lit. "freak of nature"). As early as the 17th century, teratology referred to a discourse on prodigies and marvels of anything so extraordinary as to seem abnormal. In the 19th century, it acquired a meaning more closely related to biological deformities, mostly in the field of botany. Currently, its most instrumental meaning is that of the medical study of teratogenesis, congenital malformations or individuals with significant malformations. Historically, people have used many pejorative terms to describe/label cases of significant physical malformations. In the 1960s David W. Smith of the University of Washington Medical School (one of the researchers who became known in 1973 for the discovery of fetal alcohol syndrome), [3] popularized the term teratology. With the growth of understanding of the origins of birth defects, the field of teratology as of 2015 [update] overlaps with other fields of science, including developmental biology, embryology, and genetics.
Until the 1940s teratologists regarded birth defects as primarily hereditary. In 1941 the first well-documented cases of environmental agents being the cause of severe birth defects were reported. [4]
Along with this new awareness of the in utero vulnerability of the developing mammalian embryo came the development and refinement of The Six Principles of Teratology put forth by Jim Wilson in 1959 and in his monograph Environment and Birth Defects. [5] These principles guide the study and understanding of teratogenic agents and their effects on developing organisms:
Studies designed to test the teratogenic potential of environmental agents use animal model systems (e.g., rat, mouse, rabbit, dog, and monkey). Early teratologists exposed pregnant animals to environmental agents and observed the fetuses for gross visceral and skeletal abnormalities. While this is still part of the teratological evaluation procedures today, the field of Teratology is moving to a more molecular level, seeking the mechanism(s) of action by which these agents act. One example of this is the use of mammalian animal models to evaluate the molecular role of teratogens in the development of embryonic populations, such as the neural crest, [6] which can lead to the development of neurocristopathies. Genetically modified mice are commonly used for this purpose. In addition, pregnancy registries are large, prospective studies that monitor exposures women receive during their pregnancies and record the outcome of their births. These studies provide information about possible risks of medications or other exposures in human pregnancies. Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) can produce craniofacial malformations, a phenotype that is visible in Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Current evidence suggests that craniofacial malformations occur via: apoptosis of neural crest cells, [7] interference with neural crest cell migration, [8] [9] as well as the disruption of sonic hedgehog (shh) signaling. [10]
Teratogens are substances that may cause birth defects via a toxic effect on an embryo or fetus. [11] Known teratogens include: retinol, thalidomide, [12] mercury, [13] alcohol, [14] lead, [15] polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), [16] and 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin. [17]
Understanding how a teratogen causes its effect is not only important in preventing congenital abnormalities but also has the potential for developing new therapeutic drugs safe for use with pregnant women.Causes of teratogenesis can broadly be classified as:
In humans, vaccination has become readily available, and is important to the prevention of some diseases like polio, rubella, smallpox and COVID-19, among others. There has been no association between congenital malformations and vaccination, as shown in Finland in which expecting mothers received the oral polio vaccine and saw no difference in infant outcomes than mothers who had not received the vaccine. [19] However, it is still not recommended to vaccinate for polio while pregnant unless there is risk of infection. [20] Another important implication of this includes the ability to get the influenza vaccine while pregnant. During the 1918 and 1957 influenza pandemics, mortality from influenza in pregnant women was 45%. Munoz et al. demonstrated that there was no adverse outcome observed in the new infants or mothers. [21]
In humans, congenital disorders resulted in about 510,000 deaths globally in 2010. [22]
About 3% of newborns have a "major physical anomaly", meaning a physical anomaly that has cosmetic or functional significance. [23] Congenital disorders are responsible for 20% of infant deaths. [24]Teratology in humans changes the growth of a developing fetus. A few reasons these birth defects can occur are because of alcohol, chemicals, drugs. This comes from a woman that is an addict and cannot quit smoking or doing drugs. A result of partaking in these harmful substances can be miscarriage, stillbirth, or preterm labor which can result in the fetus being addicted to what the mother was addicted too. There are about 3%-5% of newborns that have observable anatomical anomalies. This means that babies can have down syndrome, heart defects, and neural tubing defects.
Evidence for congenital deformities found in the fossil record is studied by paleopathologists, specialists in ancient disease and injury. Fossils bearing evidence of congenital deformity are scientifically significant because they can help scientists infer the evolutionary history of life's developmental processes. For instance, because a Tyrannosaurus rex specimen has been discovered with a block vertebra, it means that vertebrae have been developing the same basic way since at least the most recent common ancestor of dinosaurs and mammals. Other notable fossil deformities include a hatchling specimen of the bird-like dinosaur, Troodon, the tip of whose jaw was twisted. [25] Another notably deformed fossil was a specimen of the choristodere Hyphalosaurus, which had two heads- the oldest known example of polycephaly. [26]
Thalidomide is a teratogen known to be significantly detrimental to the development of certain body parts and organs in the body such as the eyes or the heart. [27] During embryogenesis it is observed that many different organisms experience different impacts of teratogens on organ morphogenesis and development overall. One of these organisms that are popular to study the malformations created by thalidomide are chick embryos. It is observed that thalidomide induces limb outgrowth deformities through inducing oxidative stress and thereby enhancing genetic signaling through irregular expression of bone morphogenic proteins, Bmp. [28] According to a study that was performed in 2007, the results revealed that with the increased oxidative stress thalidomide promotes, the up-regulation of the Bmp target gene and Wnt antagonist (Dkk1) this in turn inhibited canonical Wnt/B-catenin signaling and an increase in cell death was observed. The thalidomide induced cell death was significantly reduced when the introduction of inhibitors against Bmp, Dkk1 (Wnt antagonist), and Gsk3B (B-catenin antagonist) was administered into the chick embryos and cell death of the limb tissue was decreased. [29] These results helped to conclude that these three pathways significantly impacted by thalidomide for chick limb development and that the teratogenic outcomes of the limb development deficiencies thalidomide creates can be reversed if these three pathways are inhibited.
Retinoic acid (RA) is significant in embryonic development. It induces the function of limb patterning of a developing embryo in species such as mice and other vertebrate limbs [30] For example, during the process of regenerating a newt limb an increased amount of RA moves the limb more proximal to the distal blastoma and the extent of the proximalization of the limb increases with the amount of RA present during the regeneration process. [31] A study looked at the RA activity intracellularly in mice in relation to human regulating CYP26 enzymes which play a critical role in metabolizing RA. [32] This study also helps to reveal that RA is significant in various aspects of limb development in an embryo, however irregular control or excess amounts of RA can have teratogenic impacts causing malformations of limb development. They looked specifically at CYP26B1 which is highly expressed in regions of limb development in mice. [33] The lack of CYP26B1 was shown to cause a spread of RA signal towards the distal section of the limb causing proximo-distal patterning irregularities of the limb. [34] Not only did it show spreading of RA but a deficiency in the CYP26B1 also showed an induced apoptosis effect in the developing mouse limb but delayed chondrocyte maturation, which are cells that secrete a cartilage matrix which is significant for limb structure. [35] They also looked at what happened to development of the limbs in wild type mice, that are mice with no CYP26B1 deficiencies, but which had an excess amount of RA present in the embryo. The results showed a similar impact to limb patterning if the mice did have the CYP26B1 deficiency meaning that there was still a proximal distal patterning deficiency observed when excess RA was present. [36] This then concludes that RA plays the role of a morphogen to identify proximal distal patterning of limb development in mice embryos and that CYP26B1 is significant to prevent apoptosis of those limb tissues to further proper development of mice limbs in vivo.
In botany, teratology investigates the theoretical implications of abnormal specimens. For example, the discovery of abnormal flowers—for example, flowers with leaves instead of petals, or flowers with staminoid pistils—furnished important evidence for the " foliar theory", the theory that all flower parts are highly specialized leaves. [37]
Plants can have mutations that leads to different types of deformations such as:
Galls are not part of plant teratology, as they are formed due to external factors like insects bites or parasites.
Until 1940, it was assumed that congenital defects were caused primarily by hereditary factors. In 1941, the first well-documented cases were reported that an environmental agent (rubella virus) could produce severe anatomic anomalies.
Although no adverse effects of IPV have been documented among pregnant women or their fetuses, vaccination of pregnant women should be avoided on theoretical grounds. However, if a pregnant woman is at increased risk for infection and requires immediate protection against polio, IPV can be administered in accordance with the recommended schedules for adults.
{{
cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (
link)
{{
cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (
link)
{{
cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (
link)
{{
cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link)