Umbilical blood of 57 healthy full-term newborns and 62 with intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR) has been examined with the aim to determine allelic polymorphism in glutathione S-transferase GSTT1and GSTM1 genes and study of functional status of enzymatic systems detoxifying xenobiotics in healthy and IUGR newborns. Allelic polymorphism of GST genes (GSTT1and GSTM1) was determined due to the use of modified protocol of multiplex polymerase chain reaction by M. Arand, R. Muhlbauer. Homozygous state of deletion allele in a person (“null genotype”) coincided with the absence of the corresponding amplifications, indicating the presence of GSTM1 «+» and GSTM1«–» genotypes. c2Pearson criterion was used to perform the statistical analysis of the acquired data; on the condition that the sample size didn’t exceed 10 observations we used c2criterion with Yates’ correction. The glutathione system includes reduced glutathione and enzymes which provide regeneration of reduced glutathione from the oxidized form: glutathione peroxidase (GPO), glutathione reductase (GRD) and glutathione-S-transferase (GST). Significant difference was found between the frequencies of GSTM1 gene variant in healthy newborns and newborns with IUGR 45.61 and 70.58 % respectively for the allelic variants of GSTM1 «–» and 54.39 and 29.41% for allelic variants of GSTM1 «+». It has been established that the number of carriers with combination of allelic variants of GSTМ1«–»/GSTТ1«–» genes in group of IUGR newborns (12.90%) prevailed such indices in healthy newborns (3.50%). The study revealed that the GPO and GST activity levels in healthy newborns were 1.35 and 2.03 times higher (р<0.05). The tendency for GRD enzyme predominance was noticed in healthy newborns as compared to IUGR newborns. The obtained findings may be the indicative of better functioning of antiradical protective systems in healthy newborns in comparison with IUGR ones.
