4.6 Article

The plasma metabolome of women in early pregnancy differs from that of non-pregnant women

Journal

PLOS ONE
Volume 14, Issue 11, Pages -

Publisher

PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0224682

Keywords

-

Funding

  1. Perinatology Research Branch, Division of Obstetrics and Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Division of Intramural Research, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and
  2. NICHD/NIH/DHHS [HHSN275201300006C]

Ask authors/readers for more resources

Background In comparison to the non-pregnant state, the first trimester of pregnancy is characterized by systemic adaptation of the mother. The extent to which these adaptive processes are reflected in the maternal blood metabolome is not well characterized. Objective To determine the differences between the plasma metabolome of non-pregnant and pregnant women before 16 weeks gestation. Study design This study included plasma samples from 21 non-pregnant women and 50 women with a normal pregnancy (8-16 weeks of gestation). Combined measurements by ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry and by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry generated molecular abundance measurements for each sample. Molecular species detected in at least 10 samples were included in the analysis. Differential abundance was inferred based on false discovery adjusted p-values (FDR) from Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon U tests < 0.1 and a minimum median abundance ratio (fold change) of 1.5. Alternatively, metabolic data were quantile normalized to remove sample-to-sample differences in the overall metabolite abundance (adjusted analysis). Results Overall, 637 small molecules met the inclusion criteria and were tested for association with pregnancy; 44% (281/637) of small molecules had significantly different abundance, of which 81% (229/281) were less abundant in pregnant than in non-pregnant women. Eight percent (14/169) of the metabolites that remained significant in the adjusted analysis also changed as a function of gestational age. A pathway analysis revealed enrichment in steroid metabolites related to sex hormones, caffeine metabolites, lysolipids, dipeptides, and polypeptide bradykinin derivatives (all, FDR < 0.1). Conclusions This high-throughput mass spectrometry study identified: 1) differences between pregnant vs. non-pregnant women in the abundance of 44% of the profiled plasma metabolites, including known and novel molecules and pathways; and 2) specific metabolites that changed with gestational age.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.6
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available