Table 2.
Clinical and preclinical mitochondrial findings in peripartum stress literature.
| Study Subject | Sample(s) Measured | Mitochondrial Measure | Mitochondrial Outcome | References |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clinical studies | ||||
| Postpartum women at delivery, evaluated for psychological stress during pregnancy | Placenta | Gene expression of 13 protein-coding genes encoded by the mitochondria | MT-ND2 positively associated with indices of maternal psychosocial stress in pregnancy, while MT-ND6 negatively associated | Lambertini et al. (2015) |
| Postpartum women with or without a history of childhood maltreatment, 3 months postpartum | Serum, PBMCs, | Metabolomics for markers of oxidative stress, respiration (Oxygraph) and density (citrate synthase activity) | ↑ serum oxidative stress markers with higher maltreatment load, ↓ metabolites with antioxidative capacities, ↑ respiration with maltreatment load, no group differences in mitochondrial density, ↑ pro-inflammatory cytokines were positively associated with respiration and ROS production | Boeck et al. (2016) |
| Pregnant women evaluated for psychological stress and depression/PTSD symptoms | Placenta | mtDNA copy number (qRT-PCR) | Maternal psychosocial stress negatively associated with with placental mtDNAcn | Brunst et al. (2017) |
| Pregnant women at end of term, with or without prenatal depression | Plasma | Antioxidants and markers of oxidative stress, nitrosative stress | significant alterations of OS and NS with pregnancy, ↓ antioxidant defenses, ↑ OS and NS at the end of term is associated with perinatal depressive symptoms | Roomruangwong et al. (2017a,b) |
| Postpartum women with or without a history of childhood maltreatment, 3 months postpartum | PBMCs | Respiration (Oxygraph), density (citrate synthase activity) | Cortisol levels positively associated with mitochondrial respiration, but oxytocin levels negatively associated with respiration. These associations were only observed in women with high maltreatment load | Boeck et al. (2018) |
| Postpartum women following delivery, who did or did not develop PPD | PBMCs | Transcriptomics (RNA sequencing) | PPD symptoms positively associated with multiple genes involved in energy metabolism and immune response, serum concentrations of IL1β, CXCL2 and CXCL3 (cytokines and chemokines) ↑ in PPD groups | Pan et al. (2018) |
| Pregnant women at 14 weeks gestation, who did or did not develop PPD | Serum | Metabolomics (SRM-based mass spectometry) | ↑ levels of glutathione-disulfide, adenylosuccinate, and ATP, which are related to oxidative stress, nucleotide biosynthesis and energy production pathways | Papadopoulou et al. (2019) |
| Postpartum women with or without a history of childhood maltreatment, within 1 week following parturition | PBMCs | Respiration (Oxygraph), density (citrate synthase activity) | ↑ respiration and density in women with CM, CM load positively correlated with mitochondrial respiration | Gumpp et al. (2020) |
| Postpartum women with or without a history of childhood maltreatment, within 1 week following parturition and 1 year postpartum | PBMCs | Respiration (Oxygraph), density (citrate synthase activity) | ↑ mitochondrial respiration in all women from week after parturition to 1 year postpartum, ↑ mitochondrial respiration and density in CM women at 1 week postpartum but no group differences 1 year postpartum | Gumpp et al. (2022) |
| Pregnant women between 28–32 weeks of gestation, evaluated for depression and anxiety symptoms | Serum | Metabolites (H-NMR) and micronutrients (ICP-MS) | Depression scores had positive associations with alanine, glucose, lactate, leucine, methionine, phenylalanine, pyruvate, valine, 3-hydroxybutyrate, and antimony |
Laketic et al. (2023) |
| Preclinical studies | ||||
| Female adult Swiss mice, fed a high fat diet for 8 weeks pre-pregnancy which continued until 21 days postpartum, and/or offspring deprived for 10 days postpartum | Brain Tissue (PFC, HTL, Striatum, and Hipp) | Krebs cycle enzyme activity, mitochondrial OXPHOS complexes activity, creatine kinase activity | Brain regions where mitochondrial enzyme activities were most affected by obesity and offspring deprivation were the HTL and Hipp | Cruz et al. (2023) |
| Female adult Wistar rats, stressed during gestation and euthanized at 11-12 days postpartum | Brain tissue (PFC and NAc), plasma | Respiration (Oxygraph), protein expression of OXPHOS complexes and 4-HNE (marker of oxidative stress) | ↓ mitochondrial respiration in PFC, ↓ complex I protein expression in PFC, no group differences in 4-HNE protein expression in PFC, ↑ pro-inflammatory cytokines in plasma and PFC, negative correlation between TNF-α and resipration in PFC | Gorman-Sandler et al. (2023) |
Abbreviations: PBMCs, peripheral blood mononuclear cells; PFC, prefrontal cortex; HTL, hypothalamus; Hipp, hippocampus; NAc, nucleus accumbens, SRM, selected reaction monitoring; H-NMR, proton nuclear magnetic resonance; ICP-MS, inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry.