Blog 6a: Smoking Pregnant Mothers and their Allergenic Children

Smoking while pregnant has always been a strong factor in the way newborn children develop abnormally, but the exact reason or processes behind developmental issues were never clear. This research article attempts to show a connection between microRNA and the child's probability to develop allergies at a young age.

The group of scientist focus on microRNA-223, microRNA-155 and regulatory T cells, because to their best knowledge, these microRNAs are responsible for immune response and the T cells aid in preventing overactive immune systems. If there is damage to the T cells that interrupts its function, this will cause "the self-regulatory function of the immune system [to] be reduced, [thus], possibly resulting in allergies".

Collected blood samples from pregnant women and the birth cord of those children who were just born, were analyzed to estimate concentrations of microRNAs and number of regulatory T cells. When specifically examining microRNA-233, it was said that a high concentration for this microRNA and high value of T cells would prove that children exposed to tobacco smoke are most likely to develop allergies before the age of three. This assumption was made by connecting high values of microRNA-233 to low regulatory T-cell numbers, thus the immune system is not as strong as a healthy child's would be. Also, it was stated that the chance of developing eczema are higher when the child has high microRNA-223 concentrations.

I thought the theory behind this article was very interesting. My only question is, how does having allergies actually explain the reason for developmental issues such as "respiratory diseases, diabetes type II, or asthma"? These were all examples given in the article as things a child are prone to developing because of having a mother who smoke during pregnancy. Maybe I am just missing something, but that link is a little confusing.

What do y'all think?!

Here is the link so you can read it for yourself
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131007094324.htm