Pregestational Obesity Leads to Alteration in Inflammatory and Glycemic Markers During Pregnancy in the ETCHED Cohort

Authors

• S Roy Choudhury
• S Hamad
• L Vazquez
• R Caballero
• H Looker
• M Sinha

Abstract

The normal physiological process of maternal immune activation and fetal tolerance during pregnancy may be exaggerated in obese women and result in alteration of the intrauterine environment. We characterized the prenatal serum inflammatory and glycemic profile and examined its association with pregestational obesity.
Methods: The Early Tracking of Childhood Health Determinants (ETCHED) study enrolls pregnant women (Hispanic/American Indian) at a public-hospital in Phoenix, AZ (April 2022-ongoing), and follows them through pregnancy, and the maternal/offspring dyad for 18-years post-delivery. ETCHED investigates associations between adverse fetal/early-life exposures and future metabolic risk. Data on 15-inflammatory/glycemic biomarkers was available for 84-pregnant women from baseline exam. Leptin, FGF21, RBP4, IL-6, TNF-alpha, ApoC3, Adiponectin by ELISA; ApoA1, ApoB, ApoE, CysC and hs-CRP (nephelometry); C-Peptide, Fructosamine, and Cortisol (enzyme-immunoassay). Results. The principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) of the biomarkers were based on pre-gestational BMI [obese (BMI ≥30 Kg/m2) vs. non-obese]. The first 5 PCAs explained 83% of the dataset variance and PC1 alone accounted for 33.6%. PC1 strongly correlated with FGF21 and RBP4. Both PC1 and PC2 showed significant correlations with IL-6, TNFα, and hs-CRP (inflammatory). Both PC1 and PC2 significantly correlated with maternal BMI. Variables of importance (VIP>1.2) in PLS-DA were identified as Leptin, IL-6, hs-CRP, C-Peptide, and Adiponectin. A random-forest classification model (7 predictors and 500 trees) showed 82% predictive accuracy for maternal obesity in the model with 23.2% out-of-bag error. Conclusion. Pregestational obesity alters the serum inflammatory profile in pregnancy, its impact on pregnancy outcome needs further investigation.

Scientific Focus Area: Clinical Research

This page was last updated on Tuesday, August 6, 2024