ANTIBODIES TO IL1RN AS MARKERS OF PRETERM BIRTH

ANTIBODIES TO IL1RN AS MARKERS OF PRETERM BIRTH

Researchers at CZ Biohub SF and UCSF have discovered a novel biomarker of pre-term birth.

Little is known about pre-term delivery risk and more specifically the immunological processes that allow for tolerance of a semi-allogenic fetus within the mother’s body. However, the processes that govern antigen-specific adaptive immune responses to the fetus can have substantial consequences. One key example of this is when Rhesus antigen (RhD) negative mothers bear an RhD-positive fetus, which can cause severe hemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn if left untreated. While not all novel antibodies generated during pregnancy are pathogenic to the mother or the fetus, the distinction between these two classes has not be sufficiently explored. In this vein, there is a lack of biomarkers to predict pre-term birth risk.

Stage of Research

The inventors have found a novel biomarker for pre-term birth. Specifically, the inventors used a technique called phage display, in which many different antigens are displayed on the surface of bacteriophage and are then incubated with a clinical sample of interest containing antibodies. The bacteriophage bound to antibodies in the clinical sample are sequenced, giving a readout of all the antigenic specificities of antibodies present in the sample. The inventors used this method on patient samples from a randomly selected population-wide cohort of maternal sera from singleton pregnancies that had either term or preterm births. Using this method, the inventors identified antibodies that bound to IL-1RN as a strong predictor of pre-term birth. This finding was then verified using orthogonal assays including immunoprecipitation mass spectrometry (IP-MS) using placental protein lysates. Taken together, these data indicate that antibodies to IL-1RN is a strong predictor of pre-term birth.

Applications

Clinical biomarker testing to detect antibodies that are reactive to IL-1RN protein or peptides to predict pre-term labor risk.

Advantages

Antibody reactivity tests are widely used in clinical laboratory settings and are often easy to implement.
Fills an important diagnostic gap for biomarkers that indicate pre-term delivery risk

Stage of Development

Research- in vitro

Publications

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