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First trimester maternal plasma proteomic changes predictive of spontaneous moderate/late preterm delivery
Danai Mavreli1, Mariana Theodora2, George Lambrou3
1Laboratory of Medical Genetics, School of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece.
Objective:
Identification of differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) in first trimester maternal plasma between pregnant women with a subsequent spontaneous moderate/late Preterm Delivery (sPTD) and women who delivered at term. The sPTD group consisted of women who delivered between 32°/7 and 366/7 weeks of gestation.
Methods:
Isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantification (iTRAQ) coupled with LC-MS/MS was used for the analysis of five first trimester maternal plasma samples obtained from women with a subsequent moderate/late preterm sPTD and five women with term deliveries. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was further applied in an independent cohort of 29 sPTD cases and 29 controls to verify the expression levels of selected proteins.
Results:
236 DEPs, mainly linked to coagulation and complement cascade, were identified in first trimester maternal plasma obtained from the sPTD group. Decreased levels of selected proteins, namely, VCAM-1, SAA, and Talin-1, were further confirmed using ELISA, highlighting their potential as candidate predictive biomarkers for sPTD at32°/7 and 366/7 weeks of gestation.
Conclusion:
First trimester maternal plasma proteomic analysis revealed protein changes associated with subsequent moderate/late preterm sPTD.
