ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pediatr.
Sec. Neonatology
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fped.2025.1658039
Reduced IL-17A levels in neonates born to mothers with diabetes mellitus or infection during pregnancy
Provisionally accepted
LI TINGTING1
Sufen Hu2Fangfang Guo3Youming He2Haiping Cheng2Mengying Wu2Yan Mao2Kexin Zhang2Juan Lin2Rui Li2Defei Ma2Shiting Li2Cheng Chen2Bing Hu2*
Mingbang Wang2*Yingmei Xie2- 1Shenzhen Longgang District Maternal and Child Health Care Hospital, Shenzhen, China
- 2Longgang District Maternity & Child Healthcare Hospital of Shenzhen, Shenzhen, China
- 3Longgang District Maternity & Child Healthcare Hospital of Shenzhen City, Shenzhen, China
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Background/Objectives: Pregnancy complications are associated with adverse maternal-neonatal outcomes, but the underlying immune mechanisms remain unclear.Here we examined umbilical cord IL-17A levels and their link to gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) and perinatal infections (PIs).This two-phase study analyzed 87 pregnant women (38 in the exploratory phase and 49 in the validation phase) from Shenzhen's Premature Infants Gut Microbiota Assembly and Neurodevelopment (PIGMAN) cohort, divided into perinatal complication (PC) (45 cases) and non-perinatal complication (NPC) (42 cases) groups.Cord blood IL-17A levels were measured by ELISA and analyzed as a continuous variable by Nonparametric rank-sum test and a categorical variable using Fisher's exact test.Results: Nonparametric analysis revealed consistently lower IL-17A levels in the PC group across both phases. The discovery phase median in the PC group was 0.67 pg/mL lower than the 5.68 pg/mL median in the NPC group (p = 0.001); in the validation phase, the PC and NPC group levels were 0.93 pg/mL and 2.05 pg/mL (p = 0.012), respectively.Low IL-17A (<1 pg/mL) prevalence was significantly higher in PC cases (discovery: 61.9% vs 11.8%, p = 0.002; validation: 50% vs 36%, p = 0.031). Rank-sum test and Fisher's exact test demonstrated concordant results, confirming a robust association between reduced IL-17A levels and perinatal complications.Umbilical cord blood from PC pregnancies exhibited significantly lower IL-17A levels compared to that from NPC pregnancies, suggesting compromised neonatal cellular immunity. These findings implicate IL-17A deficiency in the immune dysregulation associated with GDM and PI. Conversely, the higher IL-17A levels observed in NPC pregnancies may reflect its protective role in maternal-fetal immunity during early development.
Keywords: Interleukin-17A (IL-17A), umbilical cord blood, Perinatal complications, Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), L-17A) umbili
Received: 02 Jul 2025; Accepted: 30 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 TINGTING, Hu, Guo, He, Cheng, Wu, Mao, Zhang, Lin, Li, Ma, Li, Chen, Hu, Wang and Xie. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Bing Hu, Longgang District Maternity & Child Healthcare Hospital of Shenzhen, Shenzhen, China
Mingbang Wang, Longgang District Maternity & Child Healthcare Hospital of Shenzhen, Shenzhen, China
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