Abstract
It is well established that the intrauterine biological environment plays important roles in fetal development. In this review, we re-visit the hypothesis that testicular germ cell cancer (TGCC), especially in adolescents and young adults, has been programmed in utero. The origin for extreme in utero environments is mostly maternal driven and may be due to nutritional, physical and psychological stressful conditions that alter the optimal molecular and biophysical in utero environments. Moreover, precursors for TGCC may originate as early as during fertilization or implantation of the blastocyst. Further investigations of human developmental biology, both in vivo and in vitro, are needed in order to establish better understanding of in utero programming of future wellbeing or diseases.
Highlights
The medical sciences still lack knowledge and technologies for reliable and reproducible cell metrology concerning the mechanisms of developmental biology and functional performance [3]
The intra-uterine conditions during pregnancy—in utero—have been hypothesized for decades as part of the risk for development of cancer at any age between childhood and aged adults [24]. This hypothesis assumes that development of malignant cells may last for decades, and the patient is exposed over this period to a variety of conditions starting from embryogenesis during maternal pregnancy
The origin of testicular germ cell cancer (TGCC) that contain embryonic tissue is most likely established during fetal development due to an improper in utero environment
Summary
The phrases fetus programming, in utero programming or early-life factors have been recently suggested to describe irregular, unknown maternal events before and during pregnancy that may lead to developmental alterations responsible for short and long term pathologies and diseases, and especially cancer. It is surprising that the metrology for healthy newborns is still based on correlations between overall morphological factors such as weight and length at birth or similar non-relevant factors for the etiology of pathologies during fetal development [2] In this respect, the medical sciences still lack knowledge and technologies for reliable and reproducible cell metrology concerning the mechanisms of developmental biology and functional performance [3]. Recently have new reprogramming technologies emerged with the idea of bringing aging and pathological tissue back in time to allow for regeneration [9]
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