Serum Alpha₂-HS-Glycoprotein Levels in Neonatal Infections

Abstract

The serum concentration of α₂-HS-glycoprotein was determined in 15 infected neonates and 21 age-matched controls using the radial immunodiffusion method. The infected neonates had significantly lower serum α₂-HS-glycoprotein concentration than the controls (56.9 ± 15.1 and 105.6 ± 25.7, respectively; p < 0.001) confirming that it also behaves as a negative acute phase reactant in neonates. No correlation was found between α₂-HS-glycoprotein and albumin concentrations. The serum glycoprotein concentration in the control neonates was significantly higher than that of healthy older children and reported values in adult controls. The often reported decrease in the opsonic function of the neonatal serum is therefore unlikely to be explained by decreased α₂-HS-glycoprotein levels. However, the relatively higher levels of the glycoprotein observed in this study in neonates may be related to the active bone mineralization taking place in the newborn period.

α2HS–Glycoprotein Is Expressed at High Concentration in Human Fetal Plasma and Cerebrospinal Fluid

“…The values for newborn babies and adult plasmas were very similar to those obtained previously [22]. On the other hand, this is the first study reporting both fetal plasma and CSF values.…”

The Physiologic Development of Fetuin-A Serum Concentrations in Children

“…Studies on the fetal plasma suggest that intrauterine serum fetuin-A may range widely between adult levels and very high concentrations (2.3 mg/mL maximum). Comparable heterogeneous findings have also been reported for neonates born at term (17,20,21). For children between 5 and 18 y, an increase in serum fetuin-A with age has been suggested (22,23).…”

“…Among healthy newborns, marked differences in fetuin-A concentrations were found (17,20,21) (Table 1). Two factors may explain this inconsistency: inadvertent measurement of acute phase serum samples and assay variations.…”

“…Moreover, older assays based on radial immunodiffusion or rocket immunoelectrophoresis showed a high specificity but lower precision than ELISA systems. This all may have contributed to very heterogeneous findings (Table 1) (17,20,21). We have used ELISA (26) and nephelometry (30) in several studies with a total of well more than 1500 samples with replicate variation and interassay variation of a maximum of 10%.…”

Developmental Changes of Adenocarcinoma-Associated Antigen

“…Some other proteins are also found at higher concentrations in sera of fetuses or newborns, although quantitative differences between the fetus and adult are considerably smaller than in the case of a-fetoprotein. Known proteins with these feto-specific fea tures include a2-HS globulin [13], a 2-macroglobulin [9] p2-microglobulin [14] and, as demonstrated in this paper, also ACAA. It is not known whether ACAA in fetal sera is synthesized by fetal tissues, the placenta or if it is transferred from the mother.…”