Linear hair growth rates in preschool children

Proteins in scalp hair of preschool children

Background

(1)Early childhood experiences have long-lasting effects on subsequent mental and physical health, education, and employment. Measurement of these effects relies on insensitive behavioral signs, subjective assessments by adult observers, neuroimaging or neurophysiological studies, or retrospective epidemiologic outcomes. Despite intensive search, the underlying mechanisms for these long-term changes in development and health status remain unknown.

Methods

(2)We analyzed scalp hair from healthy children and their mothers using an unbiased proteomics platform using tandem mass spectrometry, ultra-performance liquid chromatography, and collision induced dissociation to reveal commonly observed hair proteins with spectral count of 3 or higher.

Results

(3)We observed 1368 non-structural hair proteins in children, 1438 non-structural hair proteins in mothers, with 1288 proteins showing individual variability. Mothers showed higher numbers of peptide spectral matches and hair proteins compared to children, with important age-related differences between mothers and children. Age-related differences were also observed in children, with differential protein expression patterns between younger (2 years and below) and older children (3-5 years). We observed greater similarity in hair protein patterns between mothers and their biological children as compared to mothers and unrelated children. The top 5% proteins driving population variability represent biological pathways associated with brain development, immune signaling, and stress response regulation.

Conclusion

(4)Non-structural proteins observed in scalp hair include promising biomarkers to investigate the long-term developmental changes and health status associated with early childhood experiences.

The maternal hair metabolome is capable of discriminating intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy from uncomplicated pregnancy

Introduction

Intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (ICP) is a pregnancy-specific liver disease associated with elevated bile acids in the blood. Diagnosis typically only occurs after the manifestation of clinical symptoms and the metabolic mechanisms underlying its development remain unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate potential specific metabolites and the underlying metabolic changes occurring during the development of ICP in the maternal plasma and hair metabolomes of women diagnosed with either ICP or having a healthy pregnancy.

Methods

A total of 35 Chinese women with ICP and 42 healthy pregnancies were enrolled in our study. Plasma and hair samples, total bile acid levels (TBA), alanine transaminase levels (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase levels (AST), and additional clinical information were collected during the third trimester. Metabolites from maternal plasma and hair segments collected pre-conception and analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS).

Results

Three plasma metabolites (p < 0.05, q < 0.38) and 21 hair metabolites (p < 0.05, q < 0.05) were significantly different between ICP and healthy pregnancies. A combination of the eight most significant hair metabolites in a multivariate receiver operating characteristic curve model showed the best area under the curve (AUC) was 0.885, whereas the highest AUC using metabolites from plasma samples was only 0.74. Metabolic pathway analysis revealed 32 pathways were significantly (p and q values < 0.05) affected in the hair samples of patients with ICP. Pathways associated with glutathione metabolism and ABC transporters were affected. No metabolic pathways were significantly affected in plasma.

Discussion

Overall, this study showed that the hair metabolome could be more useful than the plasma metabolome for distinguishing ICP from normal pregnancy.