Umbilical Gene May Predict Infant Disease

U.S. researchers said an analysis of the umbilical cord genes of premature babies might lead to the diagnosis of a fatal infant lung disorder.

Until now, pediatricians haven’t been able to predict the development of bronchopulmonary dysplasia, or BPD, because of difficulties with obtaining lung samples.

Dr. Isaac Kohane and his team at Boston Children’s Hospital collected umbilical cord tissue samples from 54 premature infants born at fewer than 28 weeks of gestation, including 20 samples from infants who developed BPD.

The researchers found infants who subsequently developed BPD had distinct gene expression signatures involving chromatin remodeling and histone acetylation pathways.

This has provided a rare opportunity to examine the influence of fetal 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-fetal unit, said Kohane.

BPD occurs in 20 percent to 40 percent of infants born less than 2.2 pounds and before 28 weeks of gestation. It is the second leading cause of death among infants born within that gestational age.

The research appears in the journal Genome Biology.