# Exfoliated epithelial cells : a source of biological information in preterm infants

Bertrand Kaeffer, Hélène Billard, Evelyne Gauvard, Anne Drouard, Gwenola Le Drean, Arnaud Legrand, Véronique Gournay, Dominique Darmaun,

Jean-Christophe Rozé

► To cite this version:

Bertrand Kaeffer, Hélène Billard, Evelyne Gauvard, Anne Drouard, Gwenola Le Drean, et al. Exfoliated epithelial cells : a source of biological information in preterm infants. The 2013 biotechniques Virtual Symposium, Aug 2013, NA, France. hal-01607285

HAL Id: hal-01607285

https://hal.science/hal-01607285

Submitted on 3 Jun 2020

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**Section: Cellular Analysis – subsection Poster presentation**

**Title: Exfoliated epithelial cells: a source of biological information in preterm infants.**

**Authors:** Bertrand Kaeffer, Hélène Billard, Evelyne Gauvard, Anne Drouard, Gwénola Le Dréan, Arnaud Legrand, Véronique Gournay, Dominique Darmaun, Jean-Christophe Rozé

**Address:** Unité Mixte de Recherche-1280, Physiologie des Adaptations Nutritionnelles, Institut National Recherche Agronomique and University of Nantes, Hospital of Mother and Child, Nantes, France

**Abstract:**

**Context:** Exfoliated epithelial cells can be isolated from several body fluids (i.e., breast milk, urines, and digestives fluids) as a cellular mixture (senescent, apoptotic, proliferative, or quiescent cells). By quantifying the degree of exfoliation, i.e. by assessing the loss of epithelial cells or of their specific molecular compounds, it is possible to evaluate pharmacological or nutritional stress in clinical trials as well as during epidemiological survey.

**Material & Methods:** Written informed consents were obtained from both parents (or guardians) to collect gastric fluid aspirates or stools from preterm infants. We have optimized a procedure to isolate epithelial cells from gastric fluid aspirates or stools of preterm infants and designed methods to characterize exfoliated epithelial cells.

**Results:** We have used two methods to measure relevant biological information from exfoliated epithelial cells. The first is based on immunophenotyping by confocal imaging of gastric cells isolated from gastric fluids aspirates (in order to evaluate the number of parietal cells, the possibility to detect neuroendocrine cells or the occurrence of stem cell biomarkers). The second proposes to recover all eucaryote transcripts to perform qPCR analysis on cellular preparation recovered from stools.

**Perspectives:** We intend to design a system allowing the co-detection of messenger RNA and microRNA to evaluate the infant's physiological state.

**Key words:** Infant, Exfoliation, Epithelium, Confocal imaging, qPCR, Gut, Stomach, Stem cell