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Monogenic disease analysis establishes that fetal insulin accounts for half of human fetal growth
Alice E. Hughes, Elisa De Franco, Rachel M. Freathy, Fetal Insulin and Growth Consortium, Sarah E. Flanagan, Andrew T. Hattersley
Alice E. Hughes, Elisa De Franco, Rachel M. Freathy, Fetal Insulin and Growth Consortium, Sarah E. Flanagan, Andrew T. Hattersley
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Research Letter Development Endocrinology

Monogenic disease analysis establishes that fetal insulin accounts for half of human fetal growth

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Abstract

Authors

Alice E. Hughes, Elisa De Franco, Rachel M. Freathy, Fetal Insulin and Growth Consortium, Sarah E. Flanagan, Andrew T. Hattersley

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Figure 1

The effect of absent fetal insulin on pre- and postnatal growth in humans.

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The effect of absent fetal insulin on pre- and postnatal growth in human...
(A) Birth weights in individuals without fetal insulin. Light green, INS (n = 21); blue, pancreatic agenesis (n = 43). Normal growth median, dark pink; the shaded pink area indicates ±2 SDs (INTERGROWTH-21st, refs. 1, 8). The relationship between birth weight without fetal insulin and gestational age is shown by the line-of-best fit (solid blue) and 95% prediction intervals (dashed blue) from a univariable linear regression model. (B) Adjusted birth weight (40 weeks) in the absence of insulin in female (light gray, n = 31) and male (dark gray, n = 33) individuals. Center line, median; box limits, IQR; whiskers, 1.5 × IQR. Unpaired, 2-tailed Student’s t test was used. (C and D) Growth in first 4 years following insulin treatment in individuals with a recessive INS mutation. (C) Weight (orange circles, n = 10) and (D) length/height (green triangles, n = 7 birth, n = 9 postnatal), with large symbols showing the median. Measurements were standardized (SDS) for sex and gestational age/age (9). Absent data points for individuals were approximated from available data using linear interpolation.

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