Prostaglandins Other Lipid Mediat
January 2000
The factors responsible for the onset of labor in women are not well understood but it is clear that parturition is associated with increased production of prostanoids and release of arachidonic acid by intrauterine tissues. Pulmonary surfactant is secreted from the fetal lung into the amniotic fluid where its concentration increases toward term. In this paper we have shown that the ability of fetal surfactant to stimulate prostaglandin production by amnion cells is greatly enhanced by pre-incubating surfactant with amniotic fluid.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSurfactant proteins A (SP-A) and D (SP-D) are major proteins, in the lung, which are composed of collagenous and globular domains. They show an overall similarity to the serum complement protein Clq, which is involved in the initiation of antibody-dependent defence mechanisms. Both SP-A and SP-D were detected, immunochemically, in amniotic fluid as early as 26 weeks gestation and, as expected, SP-A levels rose sharply from 32 weeks towards term.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe phospholipids of human fetal pulmonary surfactant prepared from term amniotic fluid contained arachidonic acid and its utilization for prostaglandin synthesis by amnion cells has been investigated. Cells were incubated with surfactant labelled with L-alpha-1-palmitoyl-2-[1-14C]arachidonylphosphatidylcholine. The uptake of radioactivity into amniocyte phospholipids increased with time and with the concentration of surfactant and after 2 h of incubation at 37 degrees C, 63% of the incorporated radioactivity was recovered in phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) and phosphatidylinositol (PI).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol
August 1992
Platelet-activating factor (PAF) was estimated in extracts of human follicular and amniotic fluids using a commercially available 125I-radioimmunoassay. Levels obtained before and after purification of the extracts by thin-layer chromatography were similar and PAF could be estimated with high accuracy and reproducibility over a wide dilution range. PAF levels in fluid aspirated from mature (17 mm average diameter) follicles from in vitro fertilization patients were 1005 +/- 129 fmol/ml in successful (clinical pregnancy) cycles and 949 +/- 75 fmol/ml in unsuccessful (failure of implantation) cycles.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol
February 1992
Phospholipase A2 activity (EC 3.1.1.
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