{"doi":"10.3389/fpubh.2021.754706","title":"Maternal Metals/Metalloid Blood Levels Are Associated With Lipidomic Profiles Among Pregnant Women in Puerto Rico","abstract":"Background/Aim: The association between heavy metal exposure and adverse birth outcomes is well-established. However, there is a paucity of research identifying biomarker profiles that may improve the early detection of heavy metal-induced adverse birth outcomes. Because lipids are abundant in our body and associated with important signaling pathways, we assessed associations between maternal metals/metalloid blood levels with lipidomic profiles among 83 pregnant women in the Puerto Rico PROTECT birth cohort. Methods: We measured 10 metals/metalloid blood levels during 24–28 weeks of pregnancy. Prenatal plasma lipidomic profiles were identified by liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry-based shotgun lipidomics. We derived sums for each lipid class and sums for each lipid sub-class (saturated, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated), which were then regressed on metals/metalloid. False discovery rate (FDR) adjusted p -values ( q -values) were used to account for multiple comparisons. Results: A total of 587 unique lipids from 19 lipid classes were profiled. When controlling for multiple comparisons, we observed that maternal exposure to manganese and zinc were negatively associated with plasmenyl-phosphatidylethanolamine (PLPE), particularly those containing polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) chains. In contrast to manganese and zinc, arsenic and mercury were positively associated with PLPE and plasmenyl-phosphatidylcholine (PLPC). Conclusion: Certain metals were significantly associated with lipids that are responsible for the biophysical properties of the cell membrane and antioxidant defense in lipid peroxidation. This study highlighted lipid-metal associations and we anticipate that this study will open up new avenues for developing diagnostic tools.","journal":"Frontiers in Public Health","year":2022,"id":273544,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":10,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9564,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":276166,"name":"Pahriya Ashrap","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":273691,"name":"Deborah J. Watkins","orcid":"0000-0002-6692-2206","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":240115,"name":"Bhramar Mukherjee","orcid":"0000-0003-0118-4561","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":688775,"name":"Zaira Rosario-Pabón","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":273695,"name":"Carmen M. Vélez-Vega","orcid":"0000-0002-3147-4597","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":273696,"name":"Akram N. Alshawabkeh","orcid":"0000-0001-5243-4087","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":255336,"name":"José F. Cordero","orcid":"0000-0002-0564-6391","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":273697,"name":"John D. Meeker","orcid":"0000-0001-8357-5085","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":785542,"name":"Christine Kim","orcid":"0000-0001-5027-7591","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":40,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:28:03.504676Z","pmid":"35096734","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}