BACKGROUND Environmental chemicals like phthalates, phenols and parabens may impact children's immune development and contribute to risk of atopic diseases and asthma. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the associations between prenatal and childhood phthalate exposure and child atopic diseases at the age of 9 years. METHODS The current analysis is restricted to 145 mother-child pairs from the prospective Polish Mother and Child cohort (REPRO_PL). Phthalate metabolite levels were assessed in the urine samples collected from mothers during the 3 rd trimester of pregnancy and from children at age of 2 and 9 years. For the appropriate recognition of children's health status, a questionnaire was administered to the mothers and completed with information from the medical chart of each child. The clinical examination was performed by a pediatrician/allergist in the presence of the mother or a relative. RESULTS Higher urine concentration of 5oxo-MEHP increased the risk of food allergy in children at 9 years of age (O R =1.75, 95% CI1.19-2.57;p = 0.004) and decreased the risk of atopic dermatitis (OR=0.49,95%CI0.27-0.87;p =0.015). For 5OH-MEHP increased the risk of atopic dermatitis was observed OR = 1.90,95%CI1.183.05;p=0.008). Higher urine concentration of MBzP increased the risk of asthma in children (OR = 1.67,95%CI1.08-2.58; p = 0.021) but the risk of asthma decreased when the concentration of MEHP was higher (OR = 0.64,95% CI10.43-0.97;p=0.035). CONCLUSIONS Our study has not provided clear evidence for the negative impact of phthalate exposure during pregnancy and within the 9 years after birth on allergic diseases in children. OBJECTIVE Maternal heart disease (HD) complicates 1-4 % of pregnancies and is associated with adverse maternal and fetal outcomes. Although vaginal birth is generally recommended in the guidelines, cesarean section (CS) rates in women with HD are often high. Aim of the present study was to evaluate mode of birth and pregnancy outcomes in women with HD in a tertiary care hospital in the Netherlands. STUDY DESIGN The study population consisted of 128 consecutive pregnancies in 99 women with HD, managed by a pregnancy heart team between 2012-2017 and ending in births after 24 weeks' gestation. Pregnancy risk was assessed per modified World Health Organization class. Mode of birth (planned and performed) and maternal and fetal complications (cardiovascular events, postpartum hemorrhage, prematurity, small for gestational age and death) were assessed for each pregnancy. RESULTS Pregnancy risk was classified as modified World Health Organization class I in 23 %, class II in 50 %, class III in 21 % and class IV in 6% of pregnancies. Planned mode of birth was vaginal in 114 pregnancies (89 %) and CS in 14 (11 %; nine for obstetric and five for cardiac indication). selleck An unplanned CS was performed in 18 pregnancies (16 %; 16 for obstetric and two for cardiac indications). Overall mode of birth was vaginal in 75 % and CS in 25 %. Twelve cardiovascular events occurred in eight pregnancies (6 %), postpartum hemorrhage in nine (7 %) and small for gestational age in 14 (11 %). No maternal or fetal deaths occurred. CONCLUSIONS Findings of this study indicate that - given that pregnancies are managed and mode of birth is meticulously planned by a multidisciplinary pregnancy heart team - vaginal birth is a suitable option for women with HD. Lindane is a highly toxic organochlorine pesticide and widely exist in water with harmful effects on fish. Although some genes have been found to be regulated by lindane in fish, the transcriptional response of fish exposed to lindane is still unknown. In this research, the transcriptional changes of zebrafish larvae exposed to 0.2 mg/L lindane from 96 to 120 hpf were studied by RNA sequencing. Our transcriptome identified 554 up-regulated and 118 down-regulated genes and the differentially expressed genes were closely related to the neuromast development, RNA silencing genes, ion transport, and response to estrogen. In addition, we characterized two sensitive and novel lindane-induced ABCG (ATP binding cassette G subfamily) transporter genes- abcg5 and abcg8. Abcg5 and abcg8 genes are located on chromosome 13 of zebrafish and contain 1956/2024 bp open reading frame. The polypeptide deduced by CDS amplification contains 652/676 amino acids and has most of the functional domains and key residues defined in human and mouse ABCG5/Abcg5 or ABCG8/Abcg8. Only when the co-expression of Abcg5 and Abcg8 enable them to transport to the cell membrane surface in 293T cells. In addition, lindane can induce the transcriptional expression of abcg5 and abcg8 genes, and overexpression of Abcg5 and Abcg8 significantly reduced the toxicity of lindane to zebrafish larvae, which means that zebrafish Abcg5 and Abcg8 are potential efflux transporters of lindane. Therefore, these findings provide useful insights for further understanding the zebrafish larvae's transcriptional response and detoxification ability after acute exposure to lindane. An 8-week feeding trial was conducted to evaluate the effect of replacement of fish meal (FM) with fish soluble meal (FSM) on growth performance, feed utilization and expression of genes involved in TOR signaling pathway for juvenile black sea bream (Acanthopagrus schlegelii). Six isonitrogenous (41%) and isolipidic diets were prepared to contain graded levels of FSM which replaced 0% (control diet), 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 60% protein from FM. Triplicate groups of 20 fish with initial weight 0.51 ± 0.01 g were fed with experimental diets twice daily to apparent satiation. The results showed significant differences in growth performance and feed utilization among all treatments, final body weight (FBW), percent weight gain (PWG), specific growth rate (SGR) and protein efficiency ratio (PER) significantly increased with dietary replacement levels of FM with FSM increasing from 0% to 40% (P  less then  0.05), PWG, SGR and PER were significantly reduced when replacement of FM with FSM further increased from 40% t results of present study indicated that FSM could be a viable alternative protein source for black sea bream, dietary FSM supplementation could improve growth and up-regulate the relative expression of irs-1, pi3k, akt, igf-1, s6k1 genes related to TOR signaling pathway in liver of juvenile black sea bream.