| Abstrakt: |
Serum phospholipid fractions were quantitated by two dimensional thin layer chromatography in 85 apparently normal pregnant women at different gestational period. Fifteen healthy non-pregnant women matched for age served as controls. Normal chromatogram showed eight spots of serum phospholipid viz., phosphatidic acid (PA, 3.9 +/- 0.5%), cardiolipin (C, 7.2 +/- 0.4%), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE, 10.6 +/- 1.1%), phosphatidylglycerol (PG, 3.2 +/- 0.6%), lecithin (L, 34.5 +/- 1.8%), sphingomyelin (S, 31.0 +/- 1.4%), lysolecithin (LL, 8.6 +/- 1.2%) and phosphalidylionositol (PI, 1.0 +/- 0.2%). Serum total phospholipid which increased with gestational age, being lowest at 6 wk (220.2 +/- 4.8 mg/dl) and highest at 38 wk (290.3 +/- 4.5 mg/dl), started declining at term (275.8 +/- 5.8 mg/dl) and returned to levels in normal nonpregnant women (214.1 +/- 4.7 mg/dl) at 4 wk after delivery (217.2 +/- 3.3 mg/dl). PG was absent in both the first and second trimester and first appeared between 31-32 wk, i.e., in the third trimester of pregnancy when the mean per cent of PG was 0.7 +/- 0.4 per cent. During the first trimester when the L/S ratio was less than 1.2 the PI level was low (0.8 +/- 0.2%). Parallel to the increase in the L/S ratio to 2.0, the content of PI increased to 2.6 +/- 0.4 per cent. PG first appeared (0.7 +/- 0.4%) and PI concomitantly decreased (2.1 +/- 0.3%) when the L/S ratio exceeded 2.0 at 31-32 wk. Sequential analysis of maternal serum phospholipid fractions may be used as an additional tool in predicting gestational age of normal growing pregnancy. |
