Abstract
In recent years, the study of metabolomics has begun to receive increasing international attention, especially as it pertains to medical research. This is due in part to the potential for discovery of new biomarkers in the metabolome and to a new understanding of the “exposome”, which refers to the endogenous and exogenous compounds that reflect external exposures. Consequently, metabolomics research into pregnancy-related issues has increased. Biomarkers discovered through metabolomics may shed some light on the etiology of certain pregnancy-related complications and their adverse effects on future maternal health and infant development and improve current clinical management. The discoveries and methods used in these studies will be compiled and summarized within the following paper. A further focus of this paper is the use of hair as a biological sample, which is gaining increasing attention across diverse fields due to its noninvasive sampling method and the metabolome stability. Its significance in exposome studies will be considered in this review, as well as the potential to associate exposures with adverse pregnancy outcomes. Currently, hair has been used in only two metabolomics studies relating to fetal growth restriction (FGR) and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM).
Highlights
The speed in which new medical analytical techniques have been developed during the past century has been monumental
A study conducted by Duca et al (2014) found that solid-phase extraction (SPE) gives a better recovery rate of the analytes compared to liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) and reduces the background noise of the analysis via detecting sixty-seven pesticides and metabolites from different chemical classes including organochlorines, organophosphates, carbamates, pyrethroids, ureas, azoles, phenylpyrazoles, and neonicotinoids
The most recent research studies have further suggested that maternal health condition even before conception is involved in determining fetal health [166]
Summary
The speed in which new medical analytical techniques have been developed during the past century has been monumental. The total metabolic profile reflects the biochemical changes of a living cell or organism brought about by certain physiological conditions or in response to an external environmental stimulus. This provides insight into the underlying mechanism of disease development and progression and can act as the bridge between genetic factors and environmental exposures, revealing clues to the origin of the resultant phenotypes of different individuals [16,17,18]. Medical metabolomics research has been focused on the identification and investigation of relevant metabolites formed during certain pathological metabolic reactions. Metabolomic analysis of hair can provide a record of the chemical effects from long-term exposure of known teratogenic pollutants such as tobacco, alcohol, and drugs [30,31,32]
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