Table 1.
Biochemical features of the intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (ICP) cases.
Figure 1.
Total serum bile acids and HPLC-MS/MS analysis of bile acid profiles in maternal serum.
Total serum bile acids in control, untreated ICP and UDCA-treated ICP maternal serum (A). Maternal serum bile acid profiles in normal (B), untreated ICP (C) and UDCA-treated ICP pregnancies (D). In panels B–D, the serum bile acid level is shown using equivalent Y-axes in each group. However, given the significantly lower levels of bile acids in control serum the inset panel demonstrates these data using a smaller scale. * p = <0.05, ** p = <0.001, *** p = <0.0001. Panel C comparisons vs. control, panel D comparisons vs. untreated ICP.
Figure 2.
Total serum bile acids and HPLC-MS/MS analysis of bile acid profiles in umbilical cord serum.
Total serum bile acids in control, untreated ICP and UDCA-treated ICP umbilical cord serum (A). Umbilical cord serum bile acid profiles in normal (B), untreated ICP (C) and UDCA-treated ICP pregnancies (D). In panels B–D, the serum bile acid level is shown using equivalent Y-axes in each group. However, given the significantly lower levels of bile acids in control serum the inset panel demonstrates these data using a smaller scale. * p = <0.05, ** p = <0.001, *** p = <0.0001. Panel C comparisons vs. control, panel D comparisons vs. untreated ICP.
Table 2.
Comparisons of bile acid profiles in maternal serum.
Figure 3.
The distribution of unconjugated, taurine and glycine conjugated bile acids in maternal and cord serum.
Upper panel shows data from maternal samples from normal (A), untreated ICP (B) and treated ICP (C) pregnancies and lower panel shows data from umbilical cord blood samples from normal (D), untreated ICP (E) and treated ICP (F) pregnancies.
Table 3.
Comparisons of bile acid profiles in umbilical cord artery and umbilical cord vein samples.
Table 4.
Comparisons of bile acid profiles in fetal serum.
Figure 4.
Transplacental total bile acid gradients in ICP cases and controls.
Graphs representing the differences in the levels of total bile acids between maternal, umbilical cord artery and vein serum samples from normal (A) (n = 15), untreated ICP (B) (n = 7) and treated ICP (C) (n = 5) pregnancies. Black bars = maternal samples, grey bars = umbilical cord vein samples, white bars = umbilical cord artery samples. * p = <0.05, maternal total bile acid vs. cord artery total bile acid and cord vein total bile acid. ** p = <0.005, maternal total bile acid vs. cord artery total bile acid and cord vein total bile acid. ns = not significant.