Maternal serum ischemia modified albumin as a marker for hypertensive disorders of pregnancy: a pilot study

Background: Hypoxia driven oxidative stress of the placenta contributes to the pathogenesis of preeclampsia. Serum Ischemia Modified Albumin (IMA) has recently emerged as an oxidative stress marker, used in diagnosis of cardiac ischemia. Aim: To determine the efficiency of serum IMA in differentiating hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (pregnancy induced hypertension, preeclampsia) from normal pregnancy.Methods: It was a case control study. Pregnant women ≥32 weeks of gestation. Study population were included 3 groups, 19 Normotensive Pregnant (NP) women as controls, 18 pregnant women with Pregnancy Induced Hypertension (PIH) and 19 with preeclampsia (PE). Serum IMA was estimated by Enzyme Linked Immune Sorbent Assay (ELISA). Results were analyzed by student ‘t’test. Critical values for serum IMA were obtained by Receiver Operation Characteristics (ROC) curves.Results: Serum IMA levels were significantly elevated in PE (56.84 ± 21.57 ng/ml) when compared with PIH (36.24 ± 14.51 ng/ml) and NP (35.47 ± 11.58 ng/ml) (P value <0.001). With a cutoff of 38.33 ng/ml, sensitivity and specificity for preeclampsia was 88.9% and 73.7% respectively.Conclusions: Our study demonstrated that serum IMA, an oxidative stress marker is elevated in PE & PIH. Hence serum IMA can undergo further evaluation as a marker of PE.

FOLIC ACID, VITAMIN B12, AND DNA METHYLATION: AN UPDATE.

 Epigenetics is one of the exciting and fastest expanding fields of biology; this is above genetics. Methylation is the process involved in the transfer of methyl group to amino acids, proteins, enzymes and DNA of all the cells, and tissues of the body. During cell-division low folate availability may result in decreased production of thymidine wherein uracil may be substituted in the place of thymidine in the DNA sequence. It was reported that folate and Vitamin B12 restricted diet resulted in aberrant methylation patterns. The current review was undertaken to explore the role of folic acid and Vitamin B12 in DNA methylation

Relationship of serum uric acid, serum creatinine and serum cystatin C with maternal and fetal outcomes in rural Indian pregnant women

Background: Hypertensive disorders are the most common in pregnancy. Several studies showed a positive correlation between elevated maternal serum uric acid (UA), serum creatinine and adverse maternal and fetal outcomes, but only a few studies are available on serum cystatin C and maternal and fetal outcomes. The present study was undertaken to study the association of serum UA, creatinine and cystatin C with maternal and fetal outcomes.Methods: Out of 116 pregnant women 69 women had no hypertension and 47 had hypertension with or without proteinuria. Serum UA, creatinine and cystatin C was measured by modified Uricase method, modified kinetic Jaffe’s reaction and particle-enhanced immunonephelometric assay respectively. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to determine the independent effects of serum UA, creatinine and cystatin C on maternal and fetal outcomes using stata 13.1.Results: The adjusted odds ratio (OR) was 3.73 (95% CI: 1.18-11.75; P=0.024) for UA; 15.79 (95% CI: 3.04-81.94; P=0.001) for creatinine and 2.03 (95% CI: 0.70-5.87; P=0.192) for cystatin C in hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. All the three renal parameters were not significantly associated with birth weight, gestational age of delivery and mode of delivery after adjusting for the confounding factors.Conclusions: Serum creatinine and uric acid are independent risk factors for hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. High serum uric acid is associated with low birth weight and delivery by caesarian section whereas high serum creatinine with preterm delivery only before adjustment for confounding factors and not after adjustment. Serum cystatin C was not significantly associated with the maternal and fetal outcomes.

Genotype-phenotype correlations of dyshormonogenetic goiter in children and adolescents from South India

Background: Dyshormonogenetic goiter is one of the most common causes of hypothyroidism in children and adolescents in iodine nonendemic areas. The exact genotype-phenotypic correlations (GPCs) and risk categorization of hypothyroid phenotypes of dyshormonogenetic mutations are largely speculative. The genetic studies in pediatric dyshormonogenesis are very sparse from Indian sub-continent. In this context, we analyzed the implications of TPO, NIS, and DUOX2 gene mutations in hypothyroid children with dyshormonogenetic hypothyroidism (DH) from South India. Materials and Methods: This is interdisciplinary prospective study, we employed eight sets of primers and screened for 142 known single nucleotide polymorphisms in TPO, NIS, and DUOX2 genes. The subjects were children and adolescents with hypothyroidism due to dyshormonogenetic goiter. Congenital hypothyroidism, iodine deficiency, and Hashimoto's thyroiditis cases were excluded. Results: We detected nine mutations in 8/22 (36%) children. All the mutations were observed in the intronic regions of NIS gene and none in TPO or DUOX2 genes. Except for bi-allelic, synonymous polymorphism of TPO gene in child number 14, all other mutations were heterozygous in nature. GPCs show that our mutations significantly expressed the phenotypic traits such as overt hypothyroidism, goiter, and existence of family history. Other phenotypic characters such as sex predilection, the age of onset and transitory nature of hypothyroidism were not significantly affected by these mutations. Conclusion: NIS gene mutations alone appears to be most prevalent mutations in DH among South Indian children and these mutations significantly influenced phenotypic expressions such as severity of hypothyroidism, goiter rates, and familial clustering

Association between homocysteine and coronary artery disease—trend over time and across the regions: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract Background The association of homocysteine with coronary artery disease (CAD) has been explored previously with mixed findings. The present Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (SRMA) has assessed the pooled estimate of association between homocysteine (Hcy) and CAD, and its variation over the period and geography. Methods Systematic literature search was done in PubMed, Scopus and Cochrane to identify the observational studies that have reported mean Hcy among cases (CAD) and control. The SRMA was registered in PROSPERO (ID-CRD42023387675). Results Pooled standardized mean difference (SMD) of Hcy levels between the cases and controls was 0.73 (95% CI 0.55–0.91) from 59 studies. Heterogeneity was high (I2 94%). The highest SMD was found among the Asian studies (0.85 [95% CI 0.60–1.10]), while the European studies reported the lowest SMD between the cases and controls (0.32 [95% CI 0.18–0.46]). Meta-regression revealed that the strength of association was increasing over the years (Beta = 0.0227, p = 0.048). Conclusions Higher homocysteine levels might have a significant association with coronary artery diseases, but the certainty of evidence was rated low, owing to the observational nature of the studies, high heterogeneity, and publication bias. Within the population groups, Asian and African populations showed a greater strength of association than their European and American counterparts, and it also increased over the years