Metabolomics highlights reduced glutamate and acetylcarnitine in the amniotic fluid of cytomegalovirus-infected pregnant women

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a ubiquitous infectious agent that causes significant morbidity in immunosuppressed hosts and is the most common cause of neonatal congenital deafness.An infection acquired during pregnancy can be vertically transmitted to the fetus and cause permanent sequelae in the newborn, even severe, with characteristic clinical manifestations such as intellectual disability and neurosensory deficits. To characterize the metabolic changes influenced by CMV, we set up a research study of amniotic fluid (AF) metabolites in pregnant women with primary CMV infection acquired in the first trimester of pregnancy, compared to a control group in the same gestational period. Weused a targeted metabolomics platform that allowed the quantification of 50 molecules including amino acids and acylcarnitines.