Dainan Yu

Highlights Pregnancy induces increases in oxidative and inflammatory stress that can accelerate aging, leading to telomere shortening and immunosenescence and ultimately an increase in biological or epigenetic age. Paradoxically, pregnancy also promotes tissue reprogramming, which improves skeletal muscle regeneration, cardiovascular function, pancreatic islet neogenesis, liver growth, and brain myelin regeneration.

1 INTRODUCTION Early human embryonic development depends on complex cell differentiation and spatial organisation and the support of extra-embryonic tissues. At 7 days post fertilisation (dpf 7), the embryos undergo cell fate determination to form a blastocyst consisting of inner cell mass (ICM) and peripheral trophectoderm (TE).1 The ICM is composed of primitive endoderm (PrE) and epiblast (EPI).