Stokkeland LMT, et al. - Analyzing maternal peripheral serum samples, researchers studied the changes in maternal serum cytokine patterns during the first half of pregnancy. From a prospective clinical study of 110 healthy women in first half of normal pregnancy, they analyzed maternal peripheral serum samples taken at a mean gestation of 10, 13, 18 and 24 weeks. They used multiplex magnetic bead-based immunoassays to assess 27 different cytokines in the serum samples. In addition, they analyzed high sensitivity C-reactive protein (CRP) by ELISA. Via linear mixed effects models (LMM) and multilevel partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), they determined serum cytokine and CRP patterns. Findings revealed that the greatest gestational variation was demonstrated by chemokines and a strong intra-group correlation was displayed by inflammatory cytokines during the first half of pregnancy.