Serum leptin in first-trimester Down syndrome pregnancies.
BACKGROUND
Leptin is a key regulator of satiety; and the serum concentration is considered to reflect nutritional status. Expressed predominantly by the adipocytes, leptin is also expressed in placenta, which is a major source of both leptin and the leptin receptor in pregnancy serum. As a placenta protein, leptin serum concentrations may be perturbed in Down syndrome (DS) pregnancies as seen for pregnancy-associated plasma protein-A (PAPP-A) and human chorionic gonadotrophin-beta (hCGbeta). We examined whether leptin is a maternal serum marker for foetal DS in the first trimester.


METHODS
Serum samples from 44 pregnant women with a DS foetus, and 135 control pregnant women in week 8 to 14 had the leptin concentration determined by immunoassay and the concentrations were converted into multiples of the median (MoM) of controls based on log-regression analysis. The distributions of log10 MoM leptin was compared in DS and control pregnancies.


RESULTS
Serum leptin increased significantly with gestational age in controls (p = 0.02). The mean log10 MoM in controls was - 0.0486, with a median empirical MoM of 0.89, and - 0.0618, with a median empirical MoM of 0.80, in DS pregnancies. This difference was not significant. The log10 MoM leptin values in DS pregnancies did not change with gestational age (p = 0.32).


CONCLUSIONS
Leptin is not a first-trimester marker for foetal DS.
Hedley
Paula
P
Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Statens Serum Institut, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Christiansen
Michael
M
D015415:Biomarkers / Q000097:blood; D004314:Down Syndrome / Q000097:blood* / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020738:Leptin / Q000097:blood*; D016014:Linear Models; D011247:Pregnancy; D011261:Pregnancy Trimester, First / Q000097:blood*; D011296:Prenatal Diagnosis
D015415:Biomarkers; D020738:Leptin