Metabolomic profiling of maternal hair suggests rapid development of intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy

Abstract

Introduction: Intrahepatic Cholestasis of Pregnancy (ICP) is a common maternal liver disease; development can result in devastating consequences, including sudden fetal death and stillbirth. Currently, recognition of ICP only occurs following onset of clinical symptoms. Objective: Investigate the maternal hair metabolome for predictive biomarkers of ICP. Methods: The maternal hair metabolome (gestational age of sampling between 17+4 weeks and 41 weeks) of 38 Chinese women with ICP and 46 pregnant controls was analysed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Results: Of 105 metabolites detected in hair, none were significantly associated with ICP. Conclusion: ICP development was not detectable in full-length hair strands, suggesting that ICP has rapid development -only distinguishable later in pregnancy.

Metabolomic and Lipidomic Biomarkers for Premalignant Liver Disease Diagnosis and Therapy

“…Metabolomic profiling of maternal hair was conducted to find predictive biomarkers of ICP. Despite the identification of 105 metabolites in hair, none was associated with ICP [111].…”

Hair Metabolomics in Animal Studies and Clinical Settings

“…It is recommended that a “lock of hair” or a pencil thickness of hair from at least three parts of the posterior vertex region of the scalp, where inter-individual variations such as hair growth rate and growth stage (anagen) are not significant, be collected, wrapped with a piece of aluminum foil followed by a paper envelope, and stored in a dry, dark environment at room temperature before analysis [20,26]. In previous studies on hair metabolomics, a hair sample was collected from the occipital region of the scalp [27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35], in the same way as hair is collected for drug testing. The collected hair was stored at either 4 °C [34] or ×20 °C [28,33,35] before analysis in metabolomics studies.…”

“…In previous studies on hair metabolomics, a hair sample was collected from the occipital region of the scalp [27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35], in the same way as hair is collected for drug testing. The collected hair was stored at either 4 °C [34] or ×20 °C [28,33,35] before analysis in metabolomics studies.…”

“…Also, hair samples were often derivatized using methyl chloroformate (MCF) for GC-MS-based metabolomics. MCF converts amino and non-amino organic acids (e.g., fatty acids) into volatile carbamates and esters [28,29,32,33,34,35].…”

“…The clinical applications of maternal hair metabolomics recently increased, in particular to discover diagnostic biomarkers and study metabolic mechanisms in pregnancy-related complications, such as fetal growth restriction (FGR), small-for-gestational-age infants (SGA), gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), infant lower language ability, and intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (ICP) [28,29,32,33,34,35]. Some key hair metabolites, up- or down-regulated with pregnancy-related complications, are listed with their implications in Table 2.…”