Abstract
Background
Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) and luteinizing hormone (LH) are pro-angiogenic gonadotropic hormones, which classically target the reproductive organs. However, hCG, LH, and their shared CG/LH receptor are also present in the human eye. The possibility that a deficiency of these hormones may be involved in the pathogenesis of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) during its early non-proliferative phase has not been explored.
Methods
We conducted a cross-sectional study of Michigan-born preterm infants utilizing dried blood spots. We analyzed hCG and LH blood levels at 1 week and 4 weeks of age from 113 study participants (60 without ROP; 53 with non-proliferative ROP). We utilized electrochemiluminescence assays on the Mesoscale Discovery platform.
Results
Similar levels of hCG are found in preterm infants at both 1 week and 4 weeks after birth. Preterm infants with non-proliferative ROP, after adjusting for sex and gestational age, have 2.42 [95% CI: 1.08–5.40] times the odds of having low hCG at fourth week of age.
Conclusions
We found that hCG is present postnatally in preterm infants and that a deficiency of hCG at 4 weeks of age is potentially associated with non-proliferative ROP. This provides novel evidence to suggest that hCG may participate in human retinal angiogenesis.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the Michigan Neonatal Biobank, who provided the carefully preserved neonatal dried blood spots. In addition, we would like to acknowledge the staff of the Michigan Newborn Screening Program, the Michigan BioTrust for Health program, and the state registrar at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. Their expert skill in performing the complex database matching procedure was critical to this study’s success. This study was funded by NIH/NEI grant #R43EY028467.
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Substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data and final approval of the version to be published: All the authors. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content: T.Z.M., N.P., I.H.G., Q.L., A.M.
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T.Z.M. is the Director and Principal Investigator at Zietchick Research Institute (ZRI), a private (for-profit) research institute, and has pending patent applications for the use of both gonadotropins and gonadotropin antagonists for the treatment of ocular disorders. A.M. is a salaried employee (no equity) at ZRI. The other authors declare no competing interests.
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Movsas, T.Z., Paneth, N., Gewolb, I.H. et al. The postnatal presence of human chorionic gonadotropin in preterm infants and its potential inverse association with retinopathy of prematurity. Pediatr Res 87, 558–563 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-019-0580-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-019-0580-8
