Vertical Transfer of Metabolites Detectable from Newborn’s Dried Blood Spot Samples Using UPLC-MS: A Chemometric Study

Abstract

The pregnancy period and first days of a newborn’s life is an important time window to ensure a healthy development of the baby. This is also the time when the mother and her baby are exposed to the same environmental conditions and intake of nutrients, which can be determined by assessing the blood metabolome. For this purpose, dried blood spots (DBS) of newborns are a valuable sampling technique to characterize what happens during this important mother-child time window. We used metabolomics profiles from DBS of newborns (age 2–3 days) and maternal plasma samples at gestation week 24 and postpartum week 1 from n=664 mother-child pairs of the Copenhagen Prospective Studies on Asthma in Childhood 2010 (COPSAC2010) cohort, to study the vertical mother-child transfer of metabolites. Further, we investigated how persistent the metabolites are from the newborn and up to 6 months, 18 months, and 6 years of age. Two hundred seventy two metabolites from UPLC-MS (Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry) analysis of DBS and maternal plasma were analyzed using correlation analysis. A total of 11 metabolites exhibited evidence of transfer (R>0.3), including tryptophan betaine, ergothioneine, cotinine, theobromine, paraxanthine, and N6-methyllysine. Of these, 7 were also found to show persistence in their levels in the child from birth to age 6 years. In conclusion, this study documents vertical transfer of environmental and food-derived metabolites from mother to child and tracking of those metabolites through childhood, which may be of importance for the child’s later health and disease.

Diet‐associated vertically transferred metabolites and risk of asthma, allergy, eczema, and infections in early childhood

“…samples, it also points toward a prenatal nutrition-based programing effect. 7 This phenomenon has been investigated in relation to several diseases including asthma, allergy, and bone disorders 24,25 and could be key for promoting childhood health through optimization of maternal nutritional status during pregnancy. Interestingly, and in contrast to our findings, the World Health Organization recommends limited coffee (<300 mg/day) intake during pregnancy due to previous observed associations with increased risk of preterm birth and reduced birthweight.…”

“…N,N,N-trimethyl-5-aminovalerate, tryptophan betaine, stachydrine, paraxanthine, ergothioneine, homostachydrine, homoarginine, paraxanthine, caffeine, and 3-carboxy-4-methyl-5-propyl-2-furanpropanoa te (CMPF). 7…”

Genome-wide metabolite quantitative trait loci analysis (mQTL) in red blood cells from volunteer blood donors

“…Of note, the smallest p-value found in the present study, p=1.90x10-63 for the association between rs4539242 within PYROXD2 and the RBC levels of N-methyl-lysine, was much smaller than the pvalues describing any of the 27 loci associated with RBC hemolysis phenotypes in this population (citation 28), despite the much smaller cohort (250 vs 12,535) -suggesting the metabolic signatures are more directly determined by genetics than is hemolytic propensity, with the latter having a larger etiologic contribution from environmental factors.. The association between PYROXD2 and methyllysine had already been reported in previous mQTL studies, 40,41,[65][66][67][68] and thus serves as an internal control for the present analysis.…”

Foodomics: A Data-Driven Approach to Revolutionize Nutrition and Sustainable Diets

“…Data from foodomics can be applied to improve dietary quality by informing dietary guidelines, food procurement, food safety, food labels, product development, food authenticity and traceability, and agricultural guidelines. For example, application of foodomics has proven valuable for identifying dietary biomarkers ( 32 ) to elucidate dietary intake to complement traditional dietary assessment methods ( 33 – 35 ) for a more comprehensive understanding of food intake patterns. Governments can include foodomics as part of their food risk assessment ( 23 ).…”