Given that placental Ras expression and activity was increased with maternal obesity, we stimulated primary human trophoblast cells with bacterial endotoxin LPS or with proinflammatory cytokines IL-1β or TNF-α in order to mimic the inflammatory environment that is associated with obesity [14, 15, 17, 46, 47]. Here, TNF is linked to obesity due to melanocortin 4 receptor deficiency.