Plasma Fatty Acids and Their Binding Proteins in Preterm Infants

Background: Fatty acids and their binding proteins are involved in intracellular signaling inflammatory responses, hemostasis and central nervous system development.

Objective: Postnatal deficits of fatty acids in preterm infants are known, but no one determined the levels of fatty acids binding proteins in preterm babies in relation to used diet during first month of life.

Materials: Forty-two premature infants ≤34 weeks hospitalized in the Children`s University Hospital in Krakow between March 2014 and September 2016 were enrolled in the study. The children were divided into three subgroups: nursed during staying in the department (55%), feeding with the breast milk only at the beginning (14%) and children feeding from the beginning with modified milk (31%). The control group consisted of 10 healthy, term newborns. Blood samples were drawn at the first day of hospitalization and one month later. Free fatty acids (FFA) concentrations were measured using Roche kit, fatty binding protein 1 (FABP1) and fatty acid binding protein 4) were determined using ELISA kits.

Results: We have found higher FFA concentration in preterm infants than in term infants (median 1.16 mmol/l vs 1.01 mmol/l; p=0.012) in the prenatal period, where as in the second month of life there were no statistical differences in FFA concentrations in preterm infants and in term infants. Also type of feeding no influences FFA concentration in preterm neonates. We noted diminution in FABP4 serum concentration in the premature infants feeding with breast milk after one month of hospitalization (p=0.017). Additionally we observed that premature nursed infants had lower serum FABP4 concentration in the second month of life than in the perinatal period (p= 0.022).

Conclusions: Prematurity is connected with disturbances in FABP4 plasma levels where FABP1 concentrations remain similar to those observed in term infants.