A Non-Targeted LC-MS Profiling Reveals Elevated Levels of Carnitine Precursors and Trimethylated Compounds in the Cord Plasma of Pre-Eclamptic Infants

Preeclampsia (PE) is a complex pregnancy disorder. It is not extensively known how the metabolic alterations of PE women contribute to the metabolism of newborn. We applied liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) based non-targeted metabolomics to determine whether the metabolic profile of plasma from umbilical cord differs between infants born to PE and non-PE pregnancies in the FINNPEC study. Cord plasma was available from 42 newborns born from PE and 53 from non-PE pregnancies. 133 molecular features differed between PE and non-PE newborns after correction for multiple testing. Decreased levels of 4-pyridoxic acid were observed in the cord plasma samples of PE newborns when compared to non-PE newborns. Compounds representing following areas of metabolism were increased in the cord plasma of PE newborns: urea and creatine metabolism; carnitine biosynthesis and acylcarnitines; putrescine metabolites; tryptophan metabolism and phosphatidylcholines. To our knowledge, this study is the first one to apply LC-MS based metabolomics in cord plasma of PE newborns. We demonstrate that this strategy provides a global picture of the widespread metabolic alterations associated with PE and particularly the elevated levels of carnitine precursors and trimethylated compounds appear to be associated with PE at birth.