Umbilical Cord may Help Detect Fatal Lung Disorder Risk in Premature Babies

A new research has revealed that analysing the umbilical cords of premature babies may help in diagnosing the risk of fatal lung disorders.

Isaac Kohane and his team at the Children's Hospital, Boston, US, have made it possible to predict the development of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) in premature babies by analysing their umbilical cords which was not possible earlier because of the difficulties of obtaining lung samples.

A test was conducted wherein the research team collected umbilical cord tissue samples from 54 premature infants born at less than 28 weeks of gestation, including 20 samples from infants who later developed BPD.

When DNA expression profiles were compared, it was found that infants who subsequently developed BPD had distinct gene expression signatures that differed from the ones who did not develop the disease, although the maternal characteristics (for example, the cause of delivery, race, or inflammation of the uterus) were similar.

The genes that differed between the two groups involved chromatin remodelling and histone acetylation pathways.

"This has provided a rare opportunity to examine the influence of foetal physiology on postnatal health and development using the multiple tissues in umbilical cords as a proxy for a wide variety of tissues in the maternal-foetal unit," Kohane said.

The disease occurs in 20-40 percent of infants born below 1000 grams and before 28 weeks of gestation, and means babies still need supplemental oxygen at 36 weeks postmenstrual age.

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BPD is the second leading cause of death among infants born within this gestational age and is characterised by inflammation and scarring in the lungs.

The study by will contribute towards generating prognostic markers for disease from umbilical cord profiles.

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The new research was published in the online open access journal Genome Biology.

Source-ANI
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