Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Molecular and Cell Biology of Lipids
Placental polar lipid composition is associated with placental gene expression and neonatal body composition
Introduction
Placental function and substrate supply are primary determinants of fetal development and have consequences for health during pregnancy and across the life course [1,2]. Polar lipid composition of the placenta may reflect multiple factors including maternal fatty acid supply, placental metabolism and placental cellular composition. These factors could affect placental function and thus the intrauterine environment and fetal development.
Polar lipids include different classes of phospholipids, sphingolipids found within the membranes and carnitines involved in lipid metabolism [3]. These lipids play important roles in the structure and function of lipid membranes. As specific lipids may be concentrated within lipid microdomains (e.g. sphingomyelins in lipid rafts [4]), within specific organelles or cell types their relative abundance may not reflect their biological importance to placental function. Fatty acids taken up by the placenta from maternal plasma may be incorporated into placental lipid pools or transported to the fetus [5,6]. Phospholipids are the major lipid pool within the placenta and there is evidence of selective partitioning of fatty acids into different placental lipid pools [7,8].
Different placental cell populations and subcellular membrane fractions have different lipid compositions which all contribute to what is measured in the lipid extracted from a tissue [9]. Changes in whole placental lipid composition may be explained by differences in cellular composition of the placenta, changes in placental lipid metabolism or altered maternal supply. The regulation of placental lipid metabolism within the placenta is not well understood, but there is evidence that it is altered in obese mothers [10,11].
This study explores how placental polar lipid composition and lipid-associated gene expression are related to birth outcomes, specifically placental weight and birthweight and neonatal body composition.
Section snippets
Methods
The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and the Southampton and South West Hampshire Research Ethics Committee approved all procedures (276/97, 307/97, 089/99, 153/99, 005/03/t, 06/Q1702/104). Written informed consent was obtained from all participating women.
Cohort data
Maternal and neonatal data for the 99 participating mother-child pairs studied are provided in Table 1.
Lipidomic data
The lipidomic analysis provided information on 75 polar lipid species including Carn, PC.aa, PC.ae, Lyso.PC and SM in samples from the 99 placentas (Fig. 1). The full list of species measured, and summary values are provided in Supplementary Table S3. All analyses were performed on the % data. To reduce the complexity of the data principal component analysis was performed on the percentage
Discussion
This study found relationships between placental lipid composition and placental weight, birth weight and neonatal lean mass. As fetal growth is a product of placental function, elucidating the role of these lipids in the placenta may highlight placental determinants of fetal growth. Furthermore, the relationships between placental lipid composition and the expression of lipid-related genes suggest underlying regulation of lipid composition and gene expression.
The lipid composition of the
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Olaf Uhl: Investigation, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Rohan M. Lewis: Funding acquisition, Resources, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Supervision. Birgit Hirschmugl: Investigation, Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing. Sarah Crozier: Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Hazel Inskip: Resources, Writing – review & editing. Antonio Gazquez: Methodology, Writing – review &
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This work has been financially supported in part by the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013), project EarlyNutrition (grant agreement n°289346) and the European Research Council Advanced Grant META-GROWTH (ERC-2012-AdG 322605). BK and KMG are supported by the European Union Erasmus+ Capacity-Building ENeASEA Project. BK is the Else Kröner-Seniorprofessor of Paediatrics at LMU supported by the Else Kroner-Fresenius Foundation and LMU Munich. KMG is supported by the UK
References (23)
- et al.
Review: placenta, evolution and lifelong health
Placenta
(2012) - et al.
Structural diversity of sphingomyelin microdomains
Ultramicroscopy
(2004) - et al.
The influence of placental metabolism on fatty acid transfer to the fetus
J. Lipid Res.
(2017) - et al.
Effects of obesity and gestational diabetes mellitus on placental phospholipids
Diabetes Res. Clin. Pract.
(2015) - et al.
Comparison of phospholipid molecular species between terminal and stem villi of human term placenta by imaging mass spectrometry
Placenta
(2010) - et al.
Contribution of the umbilical cord and membranes to untrimmed placental weight
Placenta
(2003) - et al.
A simple method for the isolation and purification of total lipides from animal tissues
J. Biol. Chem.
(1957) - et al.
Placental origins of chronic disease
Physiol. Rev.
(2016) Polar Lipids: Biology, Chemistry, and Technology
(2015)- et al.
Placental fatty acid transfer
Curr. Opin. Clin. Nutr. Metab. Care
(2018)
Metabolism of 13C-labeled fatty acids in term human placental explants by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry
Endocrinology
Cited by (1)
Do we need to re-think growth assessment in Sri Lankan children from birth to 2 years?
2023, Sri Lanka Journal of Child Health
- 1
Olaf Uhl and Rohan M Lewis contributed equally and share the first authorship.