Maternal and Gestational Factors and Micronucleus Frequencies in Umbilical Blood: The NewGeneris Rhea Cohort in Crete

Abstract

Background: The use of cancer-related biomarkers in newborns has been very limited.Objective: We investigated the formation of micronuclei (MN) in full-term and preterm newborns and their mothers from the Rhea cohort (Crete), applying for the first time in cord blood a validated semiautomated analysis system, in both mono- and binucleated T lymphocytes.Methods: We assessed MN frequencies in peripheral blood samples from the mothers and in umbilical cord blood samples. We calculated MN in mononucleated (MNMONO) and binucleated (MNBN) T lymphocytes and the cytokinesis block proliferation index (CBPI) in 251 newborns (224 full term) and 223 mothers, including 182 mother–child pairs. Demographic and lifestyle characteristics were collected.Results: We observed significantly higher MNBN and CBPI levels in mothers than in newborns. In newborns, MNMONO and MNBN were correlated (r = 0.35, p < 0.001), and we found a moderate correlation between MNMONO in mothers and newborns (r = 0.26, p < 0.001). MNMONO frequencies in newborns were positively associated with the mother’s body mass index and inversely associated with gestational age and mother’s age, but we found no significant predictors of MNBN or CBPI in newborns.Conclusions: Although confirmation is needed by a larger study population, the results indicate the importance of taking into account both mono- and binucleated T lymphocytes for biomonitoring of newborns, because the first reflects damage expressed during in vivo cell division and accumulated in utero, and the latter includes additional damage expressed as MN during the in vitro culture step.

Global Gene Expression Analysis in Cord Blood Reveals Gender-Specific Differences in Response to Carcinogenic Exposure In Utero

“…Previous studies report that the baseline MN frequency is relatively low in newborns and no differences in gender have been identified (29,52), which is confirmed in our study. Despite this, the sex-specific transcriptomic profiles associated with MN differ dramatically.…”

“…Sampling and making of cultures occurred in Oslo, Norway. The protocol was conducted as recently described by Vande Loock and colleagues (29).…”

Cigarette smoke‐induced transgenerational alterations in genome stability in cord blood of human F1 offspring

“…For women with ≥7 d difference between reported last menstrual period and ultrasound‐based estimation, crown‐rump length was used to estimate the gestational age. Written, informed consent was given by all subjects after a complete description of the study (24, 25). Ethical approval had been granted by the Leeds East Research Ethics Committee (NewGeneris Work Package 3 Paternal Impact, ref.…”

“…Each initial regression model was restricted to observations with complete data for all variables and included, for the mothers, prepregnancy BMI, age, active and passive smoking during pregnancy, occupation, use of antioxidant supplements, ethnicity, and alcohol intake during pregnancy; for the fathers, preconceptional BMI, age, active smoking, passive smoking, occupation, alcohol intake, use of antioxidant supplements, and ethnicity; and for the newborn, sex, gestational age, birth weight, and delivery type. Associations between demographic factors and DNA damage values were evaluated using Pearson correlation analysis (24, 27). Because the regression model identified all possible significant predictors for DNA damage in this study, there was no need to perform any additional statistical analysis of the independent variables separately (Table 1).…”

Automation of the Cytokinesis-Block Micronucleus Assay Using Imaging Flow Cytometry for High Throughput Radiation Biodosimetry

“…scoring were found to be lower than those obtained by manual scoring, but a clear dose response was observed with the automated system [67][68][69]. In the context of the NewGeneris project, MN scoring data was obtained for a cohort in Crete and higher levels of MN in BNCs as well as a higher proliferation index were observed in peripheral blood lymphocytes of mothers compared to lymphocytes from cord blood of newborns [70].…”