Fig. 2.

Proposed experimental design to test the gatekeeper hypothesis. The gatekeeper hypothesis asserts that relatively few common mechanisms will operate to determine the common phenotypes that follow programming insults. Testing the hypothesis therefore relies on the parallel study of two maternal dietary insults which share a common phenotypic outcome in the offspring. Use of techniques such as microarray or proteomics allows an unbiased and systematic approach to identify the molecular targets of the maternal insults. Analysis of proteomic and gene array data will identify core gatekeeper processes and pathways and provide insight into the mechanisms which drive programming across different developmental stages.