Proteomics Analysis of Serum Proteins in Gestational Diabetes.

Jianhua Li,Xinping Xie,Lin Lu,Lihong Chen,Shan Zheng,Xiaofeng Dai

doi:10.1155/2021/4724590

Abstract

Objective The purpose of this study was to screen serum proteins for biomarkers of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) and to investigate its pathogenesis by analyzing the differences in serum proteomics between pregnant women with GDM and healthy pregnant women. Methods Patients who were admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University from June 2019 to January 2020 were included. According to the medical history and the results of the 75 g oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), they were divided into the normal pregnant women group and GDM pregnant women group. The serum of two groups of patients was collected. High performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry was used to identify differentially expressed serum proteins between pregnant women with GDM and healthy pregnant women, and bioinformatics analysis was then performed on the identified proteins. Results A total of 1152 quantifiable proteins were detected; among them, 15 were upregulated in serum of GDM pregnant women, while 26 were downregulated. The subsequent parallel reaction monitoring (PRM) assay validated the expression levels of 12 out of 41 differentially expressed proteins. Moreover, bioinformatics analysis revealed that the differentially expressed proteins are involved in multiple biological processes and signaling pathways related to the lipid metabolism, glycan degradation, immune response, and platelet aggregation. Conclusions This study identified 41 serum proteins with differential expression between pregnant women with GDM and healthy pregnant women, providing new candidate molecules for elucidating GDM pathogenesis and screening therapeutic targets.

Highlights

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is defined as a varying degree of glucose tolerance disorder that occurs or is first recognized during pregnancy [1]
If the fasting blood glucose is greater than 7.0 mmol/L, the blood glucose over 11.1 mmol/L two hours after the oral glucose tolerance test can be considered as diabetes. ese patients were divided into the normal pregnant women group (n 8) and GDM pregnant women group (n 12)
A total of 8135 specific peptides and 1152 proteins were identified in all samples. e comparison between the pregnant women with GDM and controls led to an identification of 41 differentially expressed proteins based on the protein identification criteria; among them, 15 were upregulated, while 26 were downregulated in the GDM group (Table 1 and Figure 1)

Summary

Introduction

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is defined as a varying degree of glucose tolerance disorder that occurs or is first recognized during pregnancy [1]. The clinical diagnosis of GDM is conducted mainly based on the analysis of hyperglycemia and the study of adverse pregnancy outcomes using criteria issued by the International Association of Diabetes and Pregnancy Study Groups. This diagnosis method has certain defects, causing a misdiagnosis of mild glucose intolerance as GDM [6]. With the help of differential proteomics, the pathogenesis of GDM can be further explored due to the fact that the protein secreted into the maternal circulation reflects the physiological or disease state, and change in the expression level indicates the risk [8]. Comparative analysis of proteomics from different sources in different periods of GDM has been conducted in a number of studies [9, 10], showing a great potential of proteomics in GDM research

Methods

Results

Conclusion