Abstract
Since corticosteroids have been shown to be essential for fetal organ maturation, knowledge of their endogeneous levels during fetal life is fundamental. Therefore, unconjugated progesterone(P) and 17α-hydroxyprogesterone(OHP), 11-deoxycorticosterone (DOC) and 11-deoxycortisol(S), corticosterone(B) and cortisol(F), aldosterone(A) and cortisone(E) were simultaneously determined by specific RIAs after automated LH-20 chromatography in 54 control samples of amniotic fluid obtained at 16 to 40 weeks of pregnancy. Whereas the progestins P and OHP increased significantly (p<0.01) only after 25-30 weeks from means of 17.4 and 1.8 ng/ml in early pregnancy to 28.3 and 3.3 ng/ml at term, all corticosteroids except E showed a gradual, and highly significant (p << 0.001) rise throughout gestation which was most pronounced in the biologically most active steroids F and A whose mean levels rose from 7.4 to 51 and from 0.082 to 0.471 ng/ml, respectively. E levels rose (p<0.01) from 9.94 ng/ml at 16 - 19 weeks to 16.8 ng/ml at 31 - 35 weeks, then dropped (p<0.01) to 10.8 ng/ml at term. Precursor to substrate ratios suggested a significant, rather gradual activation of fetal 21-hydroxylase (P/DOC and OHP/S), 18-hydroxylase + 18-OH-dehydrogenase (B/A) and 11β-hydrogenase(E/F) throughout gestation, whereas the 11β-hydroxylase activity (DOC/B and S/F) did not increase significantly.
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Sippell, W., Müller-Holve, W., Bidlingmaier, F. et al. Concentrations of Eight unconjugated Steroids in Human Amniotic Fluid Throughout Gestation. Pediatr Res 13, 1188 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-197910000-00045
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-197910000-00045