Fertility rates have been declining worldwide, with a growing number of young women suffering from infertility. Infectious and inflammatory diseases are important causes of infertility, and recent evidence points to the critical role of the early life microbial environment in developmental programming of adult reproductive fitness. Our laboratory and others have demonstrated that acute exposure to an immunological challenge early in life has a profound and prolonged impact on male and female reproductive development. This review presents evidence that perinatal exposure to immunological challenge by a bacterial endotoxin, lipopolysaccharide (LPS), acts at all levels of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis, resulting in long lasting changes in reproductive function, suggesting that disposition to infertility may begin early in lif
