In neonates, elevated SP-D levels in cord blood and on day 1 have been associated with prenatal risk factors and with an increased risk of respiratory distress syndrome and infections.
SP-D has been implicated in the development of respiratory diseases including respiratory distress syndrome, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, allergic asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Associations between the genetic variation within or downstream of the surfactant protein-D-encoding gene (SFTPD), which encodes the collectin surfactant protein-D (SP-D) and may lead to respiratory distress syndrome or bronchopulmonary dysplasia, recently were reported.
These results give further insight into the genetic risk factors for complex neonatal respiratory diseases and provide more evidence of the importance of SFTPD and ACE in the etiology of RDS and BPD, respectively.
To determine whether haplotypes of SP-A and SP-D are transmitted disproportionately from parents to offspring with RDS, we hypothesized that previously unstudied genetic haplotypes of these SP genes are associated with the development of RDS.
The common allelic variants of SP-A1, SP-A2, SP-B, SP-C, and SP-D genes are associated with respiratory distress syndrome (RDS), bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), or respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) bronchiolitis.