# Cord Blood Adductomics in Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia

> **NIH NIH R21** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO · 2021 · $79,923

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
 Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) remains the most common chronic lung disease of infancy, affecting
40% of infants born extremely preterm (EPT, born at <28 completed weeks gestation). Severe BPD is
characterized by chronic supplemental oxygen exposure, mechanical ventilation dependence, and prolonged
and recurrent hospitalizations within the first year of life. Despite advances in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU)
management, the incidence of BPD remains unacceptably high. Our research seeks to identify novel, reliable
and mechanistic-based biomarkers that can help guide management of our critically ill EPT patients, and inform
the development of new approaches to BPD prevention. A well-supported scientific premise is that environmental
exposures that induce lung injury through oxidative stress (OS) play a central role in BPD pathophysiology.
Putative early life exposures include uteroplacental insufficiency during pregnancy, and hyperoxia in the early
postnatal period. Reactive oxygen and nitrogen species are central to BPD pathophysiology as they directly
damage DNA and proteins necessary for lung growth and repair. These electrophiles enter the blood from
absorption in the lungs from oxidation of lipids and other molecules. Once in the blood, electrophiles react with
available proteins to form addition products, or adducts. When bound to human serum albumin (HSA), these
adducts become more stable (28 days in circulation) than the scavenged reactive electrophiles. The HSA-Cys34
residue is an important “nucleophilic hotspot” for OS-related adducts, accounting for 80% of plasma antioxidant
capacity. Unbiased, untargeted adductomics pipelines for HSA-Cys34 have recently been developed, which have
led to discovery of long-lived exposure biomarkers of chronic disease arising from OS. Application of untargeted
adductomics in an EPT infant population would provide new opportunities to investigate the neonatal exposome
as it relates to BPD. In the proposed study, we will utilize the resources of a large well-established NICU birth
cohort coupled with the unique resources of the Northwestern Adductomics Lab. Our central hypothesis is that
OS-related adducts can identify meaningful perinatal and neonatal exposures that predict BPD. In Aim 1, will
identify HSA-Cys34 adducts and intrauterine exposure pathways of BPD through untargeted and targeted
adductomics of archived cord blood plasma from 100 EPT births (N=50 BPD cases and 50 non-BPD controls),
and 50 term control births. We will quantify abundant and discordant adducts, stratified by infant gender,
gestational age, placental histologic lesions of uteroplacental insufficiency, and with other perinatal covariates.
In Aim 2, we will perform targeted adductomics in postnatal blood to test the hypothesis that HSA-Cys34 adducts
that correlate with postnatal cumulative oxygen exposure are predictive of BPD. We will prospectively enroll 50
EPT infants at two Level III+ NICUs of the Prentic...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10580523
- **Project number:** 7R21HD100831-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
- **Principal Investigator:** Karen K Mestan
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $79,923
- **Award type:** 7
- **Project period:** 2022-03-01 → 2023-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10580523

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10580523, Cord Blood Adductomics in Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia (7R21HD100831-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10580523. Licensed CC0.

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