Objective: At the end of pregnancy, a complex signaling network of cytokines, chemokines and proteic effector molecules is started. Due to such complexity, this network is very difficult to analyze. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an antibody-based proteomic analysis method to distinguish the simultaneous presence of different molecules in biological samples.
Material and method: Amniochorion explants were obtained from women at term with spontaneous labor (n = 4) and subjected to cesarean section without labor (n = 4). Explants were cultured for 24 h and then homogenated in their own culture media to obtain cell free extracts. Chemokines were identified in these extracts using a commercial array for chemokines that included: eotaxin, eotaxin 2, 1-309, IL-8, IP-10, MCP-1, MCP-2, MIG, MIP-1alpha, MIP-1beta, MIP-1delta and RANTES.
Results: All the included chemokines were found in amniochorion extracts, being IL-8 the most abundant. However, once labor is present, all chemokines tend to appear in greater concentrations than those from non-in-labor tissues, except for RANTES, which disappeared when labor began.
Conclusion: This methodological approach shows that amniochorion from term pregnancies secrete chemokines with a characteristic qualitative profile during labor. This approach would allow the fast evaluation of potential markers of this phenomenon in physiologic or pathologic conditions.