There is growing evidence that maternal infection and the subsequent induction of proinflammatory cytokines play a role in fetal brain injury. It has been noted that children with cerebral palsy have higher serum concentration of proinflammatory cytokines at birth than those of controls. Animal models of maternal infection have shown increased expression of TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-1 β in the fetal brain. We have reported increased expression of MCP-1 mRNA in the fetal brain of mice after maternal exposure to LPS(SFN Abstr 26:1619, 2000). While it is becoming clear that inflammation plays a role in periventricular white matter injury, the final pathway and the primary cells injured remains unclear. To further study this question, we gave an intraperitoneal injection of 50 µg of E.coli LPS to C57X129 pregnant mice at day 18 of gestation. Fetal brains were isolated and frozen in liquid nitrogen for RNA extraction. The differential gene expression of a variety of proteins was analyzed by using the Atlas mouse 1.2 ...