Ia. Shibley et Sn. Pennington, METABOLIC AND MITOTIC CHANGES ASSOCIATED WITH THE FETAL ALCOHOL SYNDROME, Alcohol and alcoholism, 32(4), 1997, pp. 423-434
In the USA, fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is the leading known cause of
mental retardation. FAS is estimated to affect 4000 infants yearly in
the USA with an additional 7000 children suffering various forms of f
etal alcohol effects in the absence of the full syndrome. A comparable
incidence would be expected in other industrialized countries, but es
sentially no data are available from either developing or third world
countries. An understanding of the biochemical causes of FAS has been
slow to develop, bur progress has been made toward a molecular causati
on theory of FAS. This paper summarizes much of the current work as to
the effects of fetal ethanol exposure on mitotic and metabolic parame
ters as well as ethanol's effect on the cellular signalling pathways t
hought to regulate these processes. Based upon these studies, it is ap
parent that exposure of embryonic tissue to ethanol results in decreas
ed growth and that alcohol adversely affects a multitude of cellular f
unctions critical for the growth of the developing organism, including
inhibition of protein and DNA synthesis. In addition, ethanol alters
the uptake of critical nutrients such as glucose and amino acids and c
auses changes in several kinase-mediated signal transduction pathways
that regulate these biochemical processes.