Verification of foetal Down syndrome biomarker proteins in maternal plasma and applications in prenatal screening for Down syndrome

Abstract

Abstract Background Down Syndrome (DS) has a very high morbidity, according to statistics, the incidence rate of DS is as high as 1:700 among the new born babies. At present, there are still no effective prevention or treatment methods for the disease. We used a Western Blot technique to validate differentially expressed proteins between DS foetal umbilical cord blood plasma and healthy foetal peripheral blood plasma from pregnant women to identify new prenatal diagnostic biomarkers for down syndrome (DS) and establish a new non-invasive prenatal diagnosis method. Methods We collected maternal peripheral blood (8 with foetal DS and 8 from normal foetuses) from April 2013 to January 2014, and separated the plasma. We combined the clinical characteristics and clinical differentially expressed proteins between DS foetal umbilical cord blood plasma and healthy foetal umbilical cord blood plasma to identify specific protein marker candidates and prepared monoclonal antibodies, which were then used for Western Blot technique to analyse the candidate markers. Results In the DS foetal maternal plasma, serum amyloid P-component, Apolipoprotein E, Nucleosome assembly protein 1-like 1, Complement factor B,ERO1-like protein alpha, 2-oxoglutarate dehydrogenase-like, and Thymosin beta 10 were up-regulated proteins compared to the healthy control group, and the DS group showed higher expression, which agreed with the results from the DS foetal umbilical cord blood plasma. Conclusion The up-regulated amyloid P-component, Apolipoprotein E, Nucleosome assembly protein 1-like 1, Complement factor B, ERO1-like protein alpha, 2-oxoglutarate dehydrogenase-like, Thymosin beta 10 all are up-regulation, all of them have potential to be prenatal diagnosis biomarkers for DS, and these biomarkers can further reveal the pathogenesis of DS.

Keywords

• Biomarkers
• Down’s syndrome
• Maternal blood plasma
• Prenatal screening
• Western blot