Placental Alkaline Phosphatase Activity in Serum of Some Nigerian Pregnant Women Infected with Malaria

Placental alkaline phosphatase, the heat-stable (hsALP) isoform is produced by the placenta and its activity has been associated with cord blood nutrients and proper foetal growth. Transplacental transmission of P.falciparum malaria has been reported and this has been observed to cause congenital malaria, anaemia and reduced neonatal birth weight, an evidence of poor growth. Changes in mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration (MCHC), an index of anaemia and hsALP act ivity in seru m of P.falciparum malarial infected pregnant women were therefore investigated. Forty (40) pregnant wo men (20 infected with P.falciparum and 20 uninfected) were selected fro m Abraka in Delta State, Nigeria. M CHC and hsALP were estimated as previously described. Results show that Malaria infection during pregnancy reduced MCHC value (34.55±2.29 g/dL) but increased hsALP activ ity value (96.10±12.39 IU/ L) when co mpared with the value fro m the uninfected pregnant women (M CHC=38.97±2.26 g/dL; hsALP=66.80±7.59 IU/ L). The age of subjects and gestational period did not significantly alter the trend of the observed data. Experimental informat ion suggests that malarial infection during pregnancy induces a measure of microcytic anaemia as judged by the MCHC value, and a degree of compro mise in placental (membrane) integrity as evidenced by the elevated serum activit ies of hsALP. hsALP and nutrient levels in umbilical cord blood should be further studied and results correlated with neonatal birth weight in order to strengthen the present observation and improve the understanding of placental functions during malarial infection in p regnancy. Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. In humans, malarial infection is usually caused by Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium malariae, Plasmodium ovale, Plasmodium vivax and the rare Plasmodium knowlesi. P. falciparum has been shown to be the common cause of the malarial in fection and is responsible for about eighty percent (80%) of all malarial cases and ninety percent (90%) of the deaths arising from malaria (1). The majority of deaths are among young children (1-5 years) in sub-Saharan African (2). Malarial infection is known to d isturb several metabolic and cellular activit ies. Increased activities of liver enzy me in seru m o f affect ed pat ients have b een observ ed among Nigerians(3). Th is observat ion was att ributed to hepat ic dam age by perhaps the exo erythrocytic form of P. falcipa ru m wh ich inhab its t he liver. The parasit es also destroy red blood cells and induces anaemia as previously