ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Endocrinol.
Sec. Reproduction
This article is part of the Research TopicNew Advances in Embryo Development and Embryo-endometrial InterfaceView all 8 articles
Common and Recurrent Dysregulated Molecular Network of Placental Hy-poxia and associated Vasculogenesis and Angiogenesis in Fetal Growth Restriction
Provisionally accepted
- 1Maternity and Child Healthcare Hospital of Nanshan District, Shenzhen, China
- 2The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, SAR China
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Fetuses with fetal growth restriction (FGR) and selective FGR (sFGR) face elevated health risks both before and after birth. Although the underlying pathomechanisms remain unclear, placental dysfunction is recognized as a major contributing factor. By integrating untargeted transcriptomic data from FGR/sFGR placentaes, this study identified 69 differentially expressed mRNAs (DEmRs) and 8 differentially expressed miRNAs (DEmiRs). Functional enrichment analysis demonstrated significant enrichment in angiogenesis and vasculogenesis pathways, with the hypoxia related genes HIF1A and VEGFA serving as key nodes in the molecular network. Further validation through RNAseq, RT-qPCR, and immunohistochemistry demon-strated that the expression of the transcriptional regulator HIF1A and the angiogenic factor VEGFA was upregulated in the placentas of sFGR twins and was significantly associated with clinical severity. Our results indicated that placental hypoxia, vasculogenesis and angiogenesis via molecular network of HIF1A and VEGFA may play an important role in the pathomechanism of FGR and sFGR.
Keywords: Angiogenesis, fetal growth restriction, hypoxia, Placentae, Transcriptome, vasculogenesis
Received: 22 Oct 2025; Accepted: 02 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 LI, Bai, Chan, Leung, Lau, Wang and LEUNG. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Tak Yeung LEUNG
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