Impact of Arginine Nutrition and Metabolism during Pregnancy on Offspring Outcomes

Abstract

By serving as a precursor for the synthesis of nitric oxide, polyamines, and other molecules with biological importance, arginine plays a key role in pregnancy and fetal development. Arginine supplementation is a potential therapy for treating many human diseases. An impaired arginine metabolic pathway during gestation might produce long-term morphological or functional changes in the offspring, namely, developmental programming to increase vulnerability to developing a variety of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in later life. In contrast, reprogramming is a strategy that shifts therapeutic interventions from adulthood to early-life, in order to reverse the programming processes, which might counterbalance the rising epidemic of NCDs. This review presented the role of arginine synthesis and metabolism in pregnancy. We also provided evidence for the links between an impaired arginine metabolic pathway and the pathogenesis of compromised pregnancy and fetal programming. This was followed by reprogramming strategies targeting the arginine metabolic pathway, to prevent the developmental programming of NCDs. Despite emerging evidence from experimental studies showing that targeting the arginine metabolic pathway has promise as a reprogramming strategy in pregnancy to prevent NCDs in the offspring, these results need further clinical application.

Prenatal Amino Acid Supplementation to Improve Fetal Growth: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…The arginine family, BCAAs, and methyl donors form three interesting supplementation groups by virtue of their influence on fetal growth. The arginine family plays a key role in placental growth and development through nitric oxide (NO) and polyamine syntheses and through the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway [ 9 , 12 , 21 , 22 , 23 ]. Arginine also stimulates creatine production and skeletal muscle protein synthesis [ 24 ].…”

The Association between Nitric Oxide Pathway, Blood Pressure Abnormalities, and Cardiovascular Risk Profile in Pediatric Chronic Kidney Disease

“…Arginine is a substrate for nitric oxide synthase (NOS) to generate NO and citrulline. Because arginine has multiple metabolic fates and the kidney can use citrulline to make arginine [9,10], there are conflicting findings in the literature according to its plasma level as a biomarker for CKD and hypertension [11,12]. Asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) and symmetric dimethylarginine (SDMA) are endogenous inhibitors of NOS [13,14].…”

Amino Acid Nutrition and Metabolism in Health and Disease

“…It will be interesting to see if such results affect actual exercise performance in future studies. On L-arginine, Hsu & Tian [29] reviewed the role of L-arginine synthesis and metabolism in pregnancy, with a focus on developmental programming of non-communicable diseases. They presented an overview of emerging evidence from experimental studies showing that targeting the L-arginine metabolic pathway has promise as a reprogramming strategy in pregnancy to prevent non-communicable diseases in the offspring.…”