Meconium Fatty Acid Ethyl Esters as Biomarkers of Late Gestational Ethanol Exposure and Indicator of Ethanol-Induced Multi-Organ Injury in Fetal Sheep
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Meconium fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEE) constitute a biomarker of heavy fetal ethanol exposure. Our objective was to measure meconium FAEE in fetal sheep following daily, relatively moderate-dose ethanol exposure in late gestation, and to evaluate their utility in identifying fetal organ-system injury. METHODS: Pregnant ewes received ethanol (0.75 g/kg; n = 14) or saline (n = 8) via 1-h i.v. infusion daily during the third trimester equivalent, while additional pregnant sheep served as untreated controls (n = 6). The daily ethanol regimen produced similar maximal maternal and fetal plasma ethanol concentrations of 0.11-0.12 g/dL. Ewes and fetuses were euthanized shortly before term, and meconium was collected and analyzed for FAEE (ethyl palmitate, stearate, linoleate, and oleate). RESULTS: Meconium total FAEE concentration was significantly higher in ethanol-exposed fetuses compared with controls, and a positive cut-off of 0.0285 nmol total FAEE/g meconium had 93.3% sensitivity and specificity for detecting fetal ethanol exposure. When the studied animals (ethanol-exposed and controls) were classified according to meconium FAEE concentration, FAEE-positive and FAEE-negative groups frequently differed with respect to previously examined pathological endpoints, including nephron endowment, lung collagen deposition, cardiomyocyte maturation, and tropoelastin gene expression in cerebral vessels. Furthermore, in all studied animals as a group (ethanol-exposed and controls combined), meconium FAEE concentration was correlated with many of these pathological endpoints in fetal organs. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that, in fetal sheep, meconium FAEE could serve as a biomarker of daily ethanol exposure in late gestation and could identify fetuses with subtle ethanol-induced toxic effects in various organs. This study illustrates the potential for using meconium FAEE to identify neonates at risk for dysfunction of major organs following in-utero ethanol exposure that does not result in overt physical signs of ethanol teratogenicity.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".