Abstract
Introduction A general detrimental effect of smoking during pregnancy on the health of newborn children is well-documented, but the detailed mechanisms remain elusive.Objectives Beside the specific influence of environmental tobacco smoke derived toxicants on developmental regulation the impact on the metabolism of newborn children is of particular interest, first as a general marker of foetal development and second due to its potential predictive value for the later occurrence of metabolic diseases.MethodsTobacco smoke exposure information from a questionnaire was confirmed by measuring the smoking related metabolites S-Phenyl mercapturic acid, S-Benzyl mercapturic acid and cotinine in maternal urine by LC–MS/MS. The impact of smoking on maternal endogenous serum metabolome and children’s cord blood metabolome was assessed in a targeted analysis of 163 metabolites by an LC–MS/MS based assay. The anti-oxidative status of maternal serum samples was analysed by chemoluminiscence based method.ResultsHere we present for the first time results of a metabolomic assessment of the cordblood of 40 children and their mothers. Several analytes from the group of phosphatidylcholines, namely PCaaC28:1, PCaaC32:3, PCaeC30:1, PCaeC32:2, PCaeC40:1, and sphingomyelin SM C26:0, differed significantly in mothers and children’s sera depending on smoking status. In serum of smoking mothers the antioxidative capacity of water soluble compounds was not significantly changed while there was a significant decrease in the lipid fraction.ConclusionOur data give evidence that smoking during pregnancy alters both the maternal and children’s metabolome. Whether the different pattern found in adults compared to newborn children could be related to different disease outcomes should be in the focus of future studies.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11306-016-0983-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
A general detrimental effect of smoking during pregnancy on the health of newborn children is well-documented, but the detailed mechanisms remain elusive
Tobacco smoke exposure information from a questionnaire was confirmed by measuring the smoking related metabolites S-Phenyl mercapturic acid, S-Benzyl mercapturic acid and cotinine in maternal urine by LC– MS/MS
In addition to questionnaire information, the current maternal tobacco smoke exposure status was validated by chemical assessment of the smoking-derived metabolites S-phenyl mercapturic acids, S-benzyl mercapturic acid, and cotinine in the urine collected at 34th week of gestation
Summary
A general detrimental effect of smoking during pregnancy on the health of newborn children is well-documented, but the detailed mechanisms remain elusive. Prenatal tobacco smoke exposure is regarded as the most frequent avoidable cause of adverse health effects on the foetus such as preterm birth and intrauterine growth retardation (Ward et al 2007; Windham et al 2000). Since the mechanistic link between prenatal tobacco smoke exposure and overweight development of the child still remains unclear profiling the metabolome of the affected children seems to be a reasonable strategy. The strongest metabolite concentration differences were found for phosphatidylcholines, which belong to fatty acid metabolism. Within this larger group of phosphatidylcholines especially the balance between the acyl–acyl and the acyl-alkyl forms was affected
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