ORIGINAL ARTICLE   

Minerva Pediatrics 2022 February;74(1):7-15

DOI: 10.23736/S2724-5276.19.05408-2

Copyright © 2019 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Maternal lipid profiles vs. fetal growth and cord blood hematopoietic cells: weak associations in healthy Korean newborn-mother pairs

Eun Young SONG ¹, Jong Hgun YOON ^{1, 2, 3}, Sue SHIN ^{1, 2, 3}, Ju Young CHANG ⁴, Ki-Tae HWANG ⁵, Eun Youn ROH ^{1, 2, 3} ✉

¹ Department of Laboratory Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea; ² Department of Laboratory Medicine, Seoul National University Boramae Medical Center, Seoul, South Korea; ³ Seoul Metropolitan Government Public Cord Blood Bank-ALLCORD, Seoul, South Korea; ⁴ Department of Pediatrics, Seoul National University Boramae Medical Center, Seoul, South Korea; ⁵ Department of Surgery, Seoul National University Boramae Medical Center, Seoul, South Korea

BACKGROUND: We aimed to define the maternal lipid profiles that are associated with fetal growth and cord blood (CB) hematopoietic cells in healthy Korean full-term newborns.
METHODS: A total of 608 fetal-maternal pairs were enrolled; mothers voluntarily donated CB with informed consent. We analyzed birth weight (BW) as a marker of fetal growth, and we examined total nucleated cells (TNCs) and CD34⁺ cell concentrations of CB as markers of hematopoietic progenitor cell (HPC) contents. We also analyzed maternal lipid levels and investigated their associations with BW, TNCs and CD34⁺ cells.
RESULTS: Maternal triglycerides (TG) showed a significant positive association with BW and CD34⁺ cells, and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) showed a negative association with BW and CD34⁺ cells. Though not statistically significant, higher maternal TG showed a tendency toward higher levels of TNCs. Maternal TG was independently and positively correlated with BW, and maternal LDL was independently and negatively correlated with CD34⁺ cells, although the impacts were not as strong, as indicated by small beta coefficients (0.157 and -0.226, respectively).
CONCLUSIONS: We were able to investigate the association of maternal lipid profiles with BW and CB HPCs in healthy Korean newborn-mother pairs in this study. Both BW and the HPC contents showed independent associations with maternal TG and LDL, although the effect of maternal lipid levels on fetal growth and HPCs was not strong in the normal healthy population. Because maternal lipid levels were assessed once in the healthy fetal-maternal pairs, we could not investigate those associations across pregnancy.

KEY WORDS: Cord blood stem cell transplantation; Fetal development; Hematopoietic stem cells; Korea