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Integrated profiling of metabolites and trace elements reveals a multifaceted malnutrition in pregnant women from a region with a high prevalence of congenital malformations

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Abstract

Considerable evidence from epidemiological and clinical studies demonstrated that maternal nutritional status is closely associated with placental, embryonic, fetal growth and development, and ultimately pregnancy outcomes. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the study of disorders of pregnancy using a metabolomic profiling approach. In this study, we presented an integrated comprehensive profiling approach to assess maternal nutritional status through measuring a wide variety of small-molecule metabolites and trace elements in serum of pregnant women. A total of 56 pregnant women with normal pregnancy outcomes were enrolled from Lvliang prefecture of Shanxi province, the area with the highest prevalence of congenital anomalies in China, and 40 pregnant women with normal pregnancies were recruited from Huairou county of Beijing city, the region representing a national average level. As compared with the national average level, these pregnant women from Lvliang region shown distinct metabolic phenotypic variations as revealed by the depleted serum concentrations of folate and vitamin B12, lower concentrations of carbohydrates, lipids, Se, Zn, and Cu, as well as higher concentrations of amino acids, urea-cycle metabolites, Sr, Cd, and Pb. Our results offer an improved understanding of severe multifaceted malnutrition in the pregnant women from a population with a high prevalence of congenital anomalies, highlighting the potential of a panel of critical nutrients as markers for aiding the diagnosis, prevention, and intervention of pregnancy complications.

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Acknowledgments

This work was finically supported by National Basic Research Program of China (also known as 973 Program) (Grant No: 2007CB511901). The committee members of this program reviewed the outlines for the study and reviewed the results periodically, and oversee the progression of the program, but they were not involved in study design, sample collection, data analysis, and manuscript drafting and publication. All the authors reviewed and commented on the manuscript, and approved the submitted manuscript.

Conflict of interest

No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People’s Hospital, 600 Yishan Road, Shanghai, 200233, People’s Republic of China

    Mingming Su, Xiaojiao Zheng, Tianlu Chen, Aihua Zhao, Yuqian Bao, Wei Ping Jia & Wei Jia

  2. WHO Collaborating Center for Reproductive Health and Population Science, Institute of Population, Peking University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    Xiao Ying Zheng, Lijun Pei, Xinming Song & Gong Chen

  3. Capital Institute of Pediatrics, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    Ting Zhang, Fang Wang, Xue Gu, Xiaolin Lu & Yihua Bao

  4. Department of Nutrition, University of North Carolina at Greensboro/The UNCG Center for Research Excellence in Bioactive Food Components, North Carolina Research Campus, Kannapolis, NC, USA

    Wei Jia

  5. David H Murdock Research Institute, North Carolina Research Campus, Kannapolis, NC, USA

    Mingming Su

  6. Department of Nutrition, Nutrition Research Institute, School of Public Health and School of Medicine, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Steven H. Zeisel

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  1. Mingming Su
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  2. Xiao Ying Zheng
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Correspondence to Wei Jia.

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M. Su, X. Zheng, T. Zhang, L. Pei contributed equally to this work.

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Su, M., Zheng, X.Y., Zhang, T. et al. Integrated profiling of metabolites and trace elements reveals a multifaceted malnutrition in pregnant women from a region with a high prevalence of congenital malformations. Metabolomics 8, 831–844 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11306-011-0378-0

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