David P. Barr

Protein-Lipid Relationships in Human Plasma. III. In Pregnancy and the Newborn

This study of pregnant women and their newborn infants was undertaken as a part of a more extensive investigation of factors that modify the interrelations of proteins and lipids in human plasma (1-3). The composition of maternal and fetal blood has been examined by many observers who, however, have usually focussed attention either on proteins or lipids. Electrophoretic studies of proteins have been made by Longsworth, Curtis, and Pembroke (4) who analyzed both serum and plasma; by Lagercrantz (5) and Moore, DuPan, and Buxton (6) who examined only serum; and by Macy and Mack (7) whose monograph was devoted to an inquiry concerning plasma proteins in human reproduction. There is consensus that maternal plasma has less than normal concentration of albumin and a greater than normal concentration of alpha and beta globulins while gammaglobulins are unchanged or only slightly decreased. These electrophoretic analyses of the cord plasma have shown lower than normal concentration of total protein which is chiefly attributable to a marked reduction in the concentration of alpha and beta globulins. Numerous investigators (8-10) have shown that in maternal blood the concentration of cholesterol and phospholipids is greater than normal while in blood from the umbilical cord at the time of birth it is notably reduced (11-13). In the present study, utilization of the microfractionation method No. 10 of Cohn and his coworkers (14) has made possible the separation of the lipoproteins of plasma into two fractions which together contain essentially all of the lipids. By

Pregnancy complicated by hyperlipemia.

Summary A hyperlipemia of unprecedented degree developed in a previously healthy woman at the end of a normal pregnancy. It was signalized by the development of acute pancreatitis and was accompanied by nondiabetic ketosis. Its ultimate cause was undetermined. The infant, born during this episode, did not share in the hyperlipemia of the mother and showed no physical or chemical abnormalities.