Prenatal testosterone excess programs reproductive and metabolic dysfunction in the female.

Findings discussed in this review stress the importance of normal estrogen and androgen signaling at appropriate developmental time points in maintaining normal phenotypic expression, reproductive and metabolic function and document how inappropriate steroid signaling, at inopportune times can have undesirable outcomes. For example, inappropriate testosterone exposure during fetal life alters the developmental trajectory of the female culminating in a suite of disorders, which include intrauterine growth-retardation and postnatal catch up growth, phenotypic masculinization, reproductive neuroendocrine and ovarian disruptions leading to progressive loss of cyclicity and metabolic disruptions manifested as hyperinsulinemia.