Fig. 2: Potential molecular mechanisms underlying the effects of prenatal phthalate exposure on the newborn metabolome from the metabolomic-wide association study (visit 1 n = 216; visit 2 n = 145).

Items in circles denote pathways and items in rectangle boxes denote metabolites. Blue pathways and metabolites were found in visit 1 (V1). Orange pathways and metabolites were found in visit 2 (V2). Black pathways and metabolites were found in both visits. Gray pathways and metabolites are provided for biological context but were not explicitly identified in this research. Solid arrows represent metabolites directly upstream/downstream of each other. Dashed lines represent a biochemical pathway linking metabolites not shown for clarity. Up arrows represent a positive association and down arrows a negative association. Twenty metabolites were not included, as no clear biological link was identified (see Table 3). Those marked with the maternal metabolome symbol were identified in a paper looking at the metabolic perturbations from phthalates in the maternal metabolome in this same cohort¹⁷. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.