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Original articles: Shaul Dollberg, Ronella Marom, Francis B Mimouni, and Mark Yeruchimovich Normoblasts in large for gestational age infants Arch. Dis. Child. Fetal Neonatal Ed. 2000; 83: F148-F149 [Abstract] [Full text] [PDF]

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Large for gestational age infants and haemotological indices: is leptin responsible?

Didem Aliefendioglu   (14 February 2001)

Large for gestational age infants and haemotological indices: is leptin responsible? 14 February 2001
Didem Aliefendioglu, Neonatologist Social Security Children's Hospital, Ankara, Turkey Send letter to journal: Re: Large for gestational age infants and haemotological indices: is leptin responsible? didemali{at}hotmail.com Didem Aliefendioglu	Dear Editor, We were interested to read the article of Dollberg et al[1] about the haematological indices in large for gestational age (LGA) infants. In the mentioned article the absolute normoblast count, packed cell volume, and corrected white blood cell count were found to be significantly higher in the LGA infants. Leptin, a recently discovered protein hormone, encoded by the ob gene, has been shown to be important in the regulation of body fat content, feeding behaviour, and energy homeostasis.[2] To date, a great number of newborn studies have concentrated on the relation of leptin and fetal growth. Significant associations between umblical cord serum leptin and birth weight and body mass index have been well documented.[3-5] Varvarigou et al[3] have reported that LGA infants had higher leptin levels. Koistinen[4] and recently Ng et al[5] found the leptin levels to be correlated with birth weight. Leptin was also reported to be involved in haemotopoiesis.[6] The leptin receptor OB-R/B219 is expressed in haematopoietic tissues and leptin stimulates directly the haematopoietic precursors.[6] It alone can increase the number of macrophage and granulocyte colonies and, together with erythropoietin, act synergistically to increase erythroid development.[6] According to the article of Dollberg et al,[1] the increased haematological indices observed in LGA infants were supposed to be due to relative intrauterine hypoxia. Hypoxia was shown to increase leptin secretion significantly in a human trophoblastic cell line (BeWo cells).[7] In the light of all these findings, it may be thought that the increased haematological indices observed in LGA infants might be related to leptin. Dr Didem Aliefendioglu Dr Tugba Gursoy Dr Ayse T Aslan Social Security Children’s Hospital Neonatology Unit Ankara, TURKEY References (1) Dollberg S, Marom R, Mimouni FB, Yeruchimovich M. Normoblasts in large for gestational age infants. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed 2000;83:F148-9. (2) Zhang Y, Proenca R, Maffei M, Barone M, Leopold L, Friedman J. Positional cloning of the mouse obese gene and its human homologue. Nature 1994;372:425-32. (3) Varvarigou A, Mantzoros CS, Beratis NG. Cord leptin concentrations in relation to intrauterine growth. Clin Endocrinol 1999;50:177-83. (4) Koistinen HA, Koivisto VA, Andersson S, Karonen SL, Kontula K, Oksanen L, Teramo KA. Leptin concentration in cord blood correlates with intrauterine growth. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 1997;82:3328-30. (5) Mikhail AA, Beck EX, Shafer A, Barut B, Gbur JS, Zupancic TJ, Schweitzer AC, Cioffi JA, Lacaud G, Ouyang B, Keller G, Snodgrass HR. Leptin stimulates fetal and adult erythroid and myeloid development. Blood 1997;89:1507-12. (6) Mise H, Sagawa N, Matsumoto T, Yura S, Nanno H, Itoh H, Mori T, Masuzaki H, Hosoda K, Ogawa Y, Nakao K. Augmented placental production of leptin in preeclampsia: possible involvement of placental hypoxia. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 1998;83:3225-9. (7) Ng PC, Lam CWK, Lee CH, et al. Leptin and metabolic hormones in infants of diabetic mothers. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed 2000;83:F193-7.