Maternal immune markers in serum during gestation and in breast milk and the risk of asthma-like symptoms at ages 6 and 12 months: a longitudinal study

Table 3 Proportion of quantified immune markers, their distribution and correlations between maternal pre-delivery serum and breast milk whey

Immune markers (concentration in pg/mL for all except IgA in mg/mL)^†	Concentration of immune markers^#						Intra-class correlation comparing serum and whey	p-value	Spearman correlation between serum and whey	p-value
	Serum (N = 161)			Whey (N = 115)
	Proportion of samples with detectable levels % (n)	median	5%, 95%	Proportion of samples with detectable levels % (n)	median	5%, 95%
IL-13	50.0 (80)	1.12	0.02, 9.50	70.4 (81)	0.46	0, 5.31	0.66	<0.0001	0.58	<0.0001
CXCL8	30.5 (39)	2.11	0.42, 8.49	79.8 (67)	5.60	0.40, 265.07	0.02	0.87	−0.44	<0.0001
IL-6	30.5 (39)	2.11	1.06, 27.17	30.9 (26)	1.06	0.21, 20.64	0.36	0.002	0.31	0.007
IL-5	70.3 (90)	1.06	0.03, 2.29	73.8 (62)	0.10	0, 2.12	0.64	<0.0001	0.72	<0.0001
IFN-γ	55.3 (89)	3.89	1.06, 174.22	40.9 (47)	1.59	1.07, 102.53	0.50	<0.0001	0.48	<0.0001
CXCL10	97.5 (157)	169.18	1.91, 2956.89	93.9 (108)	270.25	1.91, 10184.64	0.35	0.002	0.26	0.007
TGF-β1	89.3 (75/84)	23078.87	7.7, 45143.40	93.0 (80/86)	600.88	7.7, 1823.90	0.55	<0.0001	0.31	0.006
IgA	100 (86/86)	5.10	1.98, 8.53	100 (89/89)	4.35	0.13, 2931.48	0.07	0.18	−0.43	<0.0001

^#A total of 15 multiplexes were performed to determine the concentration of the immune markers in serum and whey. For each plate we determined the limit of detection (LOD) by multiplying the standard deviation of the blank by three. Those samples that had concentrations below the detection limit were assigned a value corresponding to half the LOD.
^†Immune markers IL-12(p70), IL-4, IL-10, IL-1β, and CCL11 in serum and in whey were not analyzed since high proportion of non-detectable values were obtained.

ISSN: 1710-1492