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Background: This exploratory study investigates the influence of maternal cortisol and emotional state during pregnancy on fetal intrauterine growth (IUG). We expected higher basal cortisol levels, or more depressive and anxious complaints during pregnancy, to be associated with slower IUG and lower birth weight. Methods: a total of 91 pregnant women were recruited from the antenatal clinic and were seen once each trimester. In addition to psychological assessments, a diurnal cortisol profile was derived from saliva samples. IUG was evaluated using ultrasound. results: In mid-pregnancy (trimester (T)2), basal cortisol levels significantly predicted the variance of weight (proportion of variance in growth variable explained (PVe) = 11.6%) and body mass index (BMI) at birth (PVe = 6.8%). In late pregnancy (T3) emotional state, particularly depressive symptoms (BMI at birth: PVe = 6.9%; ponderal index (PI) at birth: PVe = 8.2%; head circumference at T3: PVe = 10.3%; head circumference at birth PVe = 9.1%) and attachment (BMI at birth: PVe = 6.9%; PI at birth: PVe = 7.2%) had an influence on growth. analysis of growth between T2 and T3 showed that attachment and cortisol in T3 had an influence on the variation in increase in estimated fetal weight (PVe = 12.5-8.6%).

IntroductionSchizophrenia is a genetically heterogeneous disorder that is associated with several common and rare genetic variants. As technology involved, cost advantages of chip based genotyping was combined with information about rare variants, resulting in the Infinium HumanExome Beadchip. Using this chip, a sample of 493 patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and 484 healthy controls was genotyped.ResultsFrom the initial 242901 SNVs, 88306 had at least one minor allele and passed quality control. No variant reached genomewide-significant results (p<10-8). The SNP with the lowest p-value was rs1230345 in WISP3 (p = 3.05*10−6), followed by rs9311525 in CACNA2D3 (p = 1.03*10−5) and rs1558557 (p = 3.85*10−05) on chromosome 7. At the gene level, 3 genes were of interest: WISP3, on chromosome 6q21, a signally protein from the extracellular matrix. A second candidate gene is CACNA2D3, a regulator of the intracerebral calcium pathway. A third gene is TNFSF10, associated with p53 mediated apoptosis.

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