A large number of early animal and cell experiments had shown that the matrix content of cartilage in each of the above periods decreased significantly in the PDE-induced IUGR model, and the expression levels of ACAN mRNA and protein were also considerably reduced (Iwaniak et al., 2016; Chen et al., 2018; Xiao et al., 2020). Here, ALDH7A1 is linked to fetal growth restriction.