Foetuses are under greater oxidative stress than their mothers, as measured by the respective levels of oxidized and reduced conezyme Q10. - GreenMedInfo Summary

Despite their being good markers of oxidative stress for clinical use, little is known about ubiquinol-10 (reduced coenzyme Q10) and ubiquinone-10 (oxidized coenzyme Q10) levels in foetuses and their mothers. This study investigates oxidative stress in 10 healthy maternal venous, umbilical arterial and venous bloods after vaginal delivery by measuring ubiquinol-10 and ubiquinone-10 levels. Serum ubiquinol-10 and ubiquinone-10 levels were measured by HPLC with a highly sensitive electrochemical detector. Maternal venous ubiquinol-10 and ubiquinone-10 levels were significantly higher than umbilical arterial and venous levels (all p<0.001). However, the ubiquinone-10/total coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) ratio, which reflects the redox status, was significantly higher in umbilical arterial and umbilical venous blood compared to maternal venous blood (all p<0.001). The ubiquinone-10/total CoQ10 ratio was higher in umbilical arterial than in umbilical venous blood (p<0.01). The present study demonstrated that foetuses were under higher oxidative stress than their mothers.