Introduction: Preeclampsia (PE) affects about 3% of pregnancies. The syndrome cannot be accurately predicted, and large variation complicates the search for early biomarkers. Metabolites are components of the metabolism; the chemical interactions in the body necessary for life. Metabolomics, the study of metabolism, has been used to characterize diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease (CVD).
Objectives: Explore the use of magnetic resonance (MR) metabolomics on PE, and to elucidate potential clues to PE etiology and pathogenesis.
Methods: Serum and urine from non-pregnant women (n=10) and pregnant women with PE (n=10) or normal pregnancies (n=10), was analyzed with MR spectroscopy and subjected to multivariate analysis (MVA). Metabolites were quantified and compared between groups.
Results: Urine and serum samples revealed differences between PE and both control groups. Ten urine metabolites were significantly different between the three groups. Urine samples from women with early-onset PE clustered together in MVA. PE serum spectra had higher levels of low and very-low density lipoproteins, and lower high-density lipoproteins compared to control groups.
Conclusion: PE and control samples were effectively discriminated using MR metabolomics, suggesting that MR metabolomics is a useful method for improved sub-phenotyping of PE in larger studies. Information relevant to the disease was found both for serum and urine samples, and indicated similarities between PE and CVD.
Copyright © 2013. Published by Elsevier B.V.