Table 3.
Proportion of quantified immune markers, their distribution and correlations between maternal pre-delivery serum and breast milk whey
| Immune markers (concentration in pg/mL for all except IgA in mg/mL)† |
Concentration of immune markers# |
Intra-class correlation comparing serum and whey | p-value | Spearman correlation between serum and whey | p-value | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Serum (N = 161) |
Whey (N = 115) |
|||||||||
| Proportion of samples with detectable levels % (n) | median | 5%, 95% | Proportion of samples with detectable levels % (n) | median | 5%, 95% | |||||
| IL-13 |
50.0 (80) |
1.12 |
0.02, 9.50 |
70.4 (81) |
0.46 |
0, 5.31 |
0.66 |
<0.0001 |
0.58 |
<0.0001 |
| CXCL8 |
30.5 (39) |
2.11 |
0.42, 8.49 |
79.8 (67) |
5.60 |
0.40, 265.07 |
0.02 |
0.87 |
−0.44 |
<0.0001 |
| IL-6 |
30.5 (39) |
2.11 |
1.06, 27.17 |
30.9 (26) |
1.06 |
0.21, 20.64 |
0.36 |
0.002 |
0.31 |
0.007 |
| IL-5 |
70.3 (90) |
1.06 |
0.03, 2.29 |
73.8 (62) |
0.10 |
0, 2.12 |
0.64 |
<0.0001 |
0.72 |
<0.0001 |
| IFN-γ |
55.3 (89) |
3.89 |
1.06, 174.22 |
40.9 (47) |
1.59 |
1.07, 102.53 |
0.50 |
<0.0001 |
0.48 |
<0.0001 |
| CXCL10 |
97.5 (157) |
169.18 |
1.91, 2956.89 |
93.9 (108) |
270.25 |
1.91, 10184.64 |
0.35 |
0.002 |
0.26 |
0.007 |
| TGF-β1 |
89.3 (75/84) |
23078.87 |
7.7, 45143.40 |
93.0 (80/86) |
600.88 |
7.7, 1823.90 |
0.55 |
<0.0001 |
0.31 |
0.006 |
| IgA | 100 (86/86) | 5.10 | 1.98, 8.53 | 100 (89/89) | 4.35 | 0.13, 2931.48 | 0.07 | 0.18 | −0.43 | <0.0001 |
#A total of 15 multiplexes were performed to determine the concentration of the immune markers in serum and whey. For each plate we determined the limit of detection (LOD) by multiplying the standard deviation of the blank by three. Those samples that had concentrations below the detection limit were assigned a value corresponding to half the LOD.
†Immune markers IL-12(p70), IL-4, IL-10, IL-1β, and CCL11 in serum and in whey were not analyzed since high proportion of non-detectable values were obtained.