Medical School
Twin Cities
Iron deficiency and hypoglycemia (HG) are common in newborn infants and can lead to cerebral energy failure and brain injury during development. Currently, the are no ways of diagnosising impending brain injury. Better knowledge of cerebral energy status would optimize clinical management. 1H NMR and LC/MS-based metabolomics and proteomics of readily accessible body fluids, such as plasma and CSF, are promising new methods for this investigation. The advantages of these methods are high sensitivity and reproducibility, relatively short measuring time, and requirement for small sample volumes, which is important for studies in small rodents. In addition, RNA-seq and pathway analysis are an additional research tool to evaluate genomic changes in iron-deficient subjects.
The purpose of this research is to determine the risk of cerebral energy failure during HG and iron deficiency in young rats and infant monkeys using 1H NMR and LC/MS-based proteomic and metabolomic analysis of plasma, tissue, and CSF.