Diet-associated vertically transferred metabolites and risk of asthma, allergy, eczema, and infections in early childhood

BACKGROUND

Evidence suggests maternal pregnancy dietary intake and nutrition in the early postnatal period to be of importance for the newborn child's health. However, studies investigating diet-related metabolites transferred from mother to child on disease risk in childhood are lacking. We sought to investigate the influence of vertically transferred metabolites on risk of atopic diseases and infections during preschool age.

METHODS

In the Danish population-based COPSAC2010 mother-child cohort, information on 10 diet-related vertically transferred metabolites from metabolomics profiles of dried blood spots (DBS) at age 2-3 days was analyzed in relation to the risk of childhood asthma, allergy, eczema, and infections using principal component and single metabolite analyses.

RESULTS

In 678 children with DBS measurements, a coffee-related metabolite profile reflected by principal component 1 was inversely associated with risk of asthma (odds ratio (95% CI) 0.78 (0.64; 0.95), p = .014) and eczema at age 6 years (0.79 (0.65; 0.97), p = .022). Furthermore, increasing stachydrine (fruit-related), 3-carboxy-4-methyl-5-propyl-2-furanpropanoate (fish-related), and ergothioneine (fruit-, green vegetables-, and fish-related) levels were all significantly associated with reduced risks of infections at age 0-3 years (p < .05).

CONCLUSION

This study demonstrates associations between pregnancy diet-related vertically transferred metabolites measured in children in early life and risk of atopic diseases and infections in childhood. The specific metabolites associated with a reduced disease risk in children may contribute to the characterization of a healthy nutritional profile in pregnancy using a metabolomics-based unbiased tool for predicting childhood health.

Vertical Transfer of Metabolites Detectable from Newborn's Dried Blood Spot Samples Using UPLC-MS: A Chemometric Study

The pregnancy period and first days of a newborn's life is an important time window to ensure a healthy development of the baby. This is also the time when the mother and her baby are exposed to the same environmental conditions and intake of nutrients, which can be determined by assessing the blood metabolome. For this purpose, dried blood spots (DBS) of newborns are a valuable sampling technique to characterize what happens during this important mother-child time window. We used metabolomics profiles from DBS of newborns (age 2-3 days) and maternal plasma samples at gestation week 24 and postpartum week 1 from n=664 mother-child pairs of the Copenhagen Prospective Studies on Asthma in Childhood 2010 (COPSAC2010) cohort, to study the vertical mother-child transfer of metabolites. Further, we investigated how persistent the metabolites are from the newborn and up to 6 months, 18 months, and 6 years of age. Two hundred seventy two metabolites from UPLC-MS (Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry) analysis of DBS and maternal plasma were analyzed using correlation analysis. A total of 11 metabolites exhibited evidence of transfer (R>0.3), including tryptophan betaine, ergothioneine, cotinine, theobromine, paraxanthine, and N6-methyllysine. Of these, 7 were also found to show persistence in their levels in the child from birth to age 6 years. In conclusion, this study documents vertical transfer of environmental and food-derived metabolites from mother to child and tracking of those metabolites through childhood, which may be of importance for the child's later health and disease.