Plasma metabolic disturbances during pregnancy and postpartum in women with depression

Zhiqian Yu; Naomi Matsukawa; Daisuke Saigusa; Ikuko N Motoike; Chiaki Ono; Yasunobu Okamura; Tomomi Onuma; Yuta Takahashi; Mai Sakai; Hisaaki Kudo; Taku Obara; Keiko Murakami; Matusyuki Shirota; Saya Kikuchi; Natsuko Kobayashi; Yoshie Kikuchi; Junichi Sugawara; Naoko Minegishi; Soichi Ogishima; Kengo Kinoshita; Masayuki Yamamoto; Nobuo Yaegashi; Shinichi Kuriyama; Seizo Koshiba; Hiroaki Tomita

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.105666

Plasma metabolic disturbances during pregnancy and postpartum in women with depression

iScience. 2022 Nov 24;25(12):105666. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.105666. eCollection 2022 Dec 22.

Authors

Zhiqian Yu^{1

2}, Naomi Matsukawa³, Daisuke Saigusa^{3

4}, Ikuko N Motoike^{3

5}, Chiaki Ono¹, Yasunobu Okamura^{2

6}, Tomomi Onuma², Yuta Takahashi¹, Mai Sakai⁷, Hisaaki Kudo⁸, Taku Obara², Keiko Murakami², Matusyuki Shirota², Saya Kikuchi¹, Natsuko Kobayashi¹, Yoshie Kikuchi¹, Junichi Sugawara², Naoko Minegishi⁸, Soichi Ogishima³, Kengo Kinoshita^{3

5}, Masayuki Yamamoto^{3

9}, Nobuo Yaegashi^{2

10}, Shinichi Kuriyama^{2

11}, Seizo Koshiba^{2

3}, Hiroaki Tomita^{1

2

7}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, Graduate School of Medicine, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
² Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
³ Department of Integrative Genomics, Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
⁴ Laboratory of Biomedical and Analytical Sciences, Faculty of Pharma-Science, Teikyo University.
⁵ Department of System Bioinformatics, Graduate School of Information Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
⁶ Innovations in Next-Generation Medicine, Advanced Research Center, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
⁷ Department of Disaster Psychiatry, International Research Institute for Disaster Science, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
⁸ Department of Biobank Life Science, Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
⁹ Department of Medical Biochemistry, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.
¹⁰ Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Graduate School of Medicine, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
¹¹ Division of Disaster Public Health, International Research Institute for Disaster Science, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.

Abstract

Examining plasma metabolic profiling during pregnancy and postpartum could help clinicians understand the risk factors for postpartum depression (PPD) development. This analysis targeted paired plasma metabolites in mid-late gestational and 1 month postpartum periods in women with (n = 209) or without (n = 222) PPD. Gas chromatogram-mass spectrometry was used to analyze plasma metabolites at these two time points. Among the 170 objected plasma metabolites, principal component analysis distinguished pregnancy and postpartum metabolites but failed to discriminate women with and without PPD. Compared to women without PPD, those with PPD exhibited 37 metabolites with disparate changes during pregnancy and the 1-month postpartum period and an enriched citrate cycle. Machine learning and multivariate statistical analysis identified two or three compounds that could be potential biomarkers for PPD prediction during pregnancy. Our findings suggest metabolic disturbances in women with depression and may help to elucidate metabolic processes associated with PPD development.

Keywords: Biological sciences; Metabolomics; Physiology.