BETTER known for giving meringues and soufflés their texture, egg white is being tested as a sealant for the amnion, a membrane that surrounds developing fetuses.
The amnion can rupture spontaneously, but can also tear after – in which a needle is used to extract amniotic fluid to test for genetic diseases – or fetal surgery. Such a breach can cause the mother’s waters to break prematurely, resulting in miscarriage.
Noting its stickiness and its role in protecting a developing chick, and his colleagues at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, turned to purified, treated white from chicken eggs, which they had already used to repair holes in balloons and condoms.
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They took discarded human amnions and stretched each across the bottom of an open-ended glass tube, which they then filled with human amniotic fluid. Next they ruptured the membrane with a needle, and after 30 seconds applied purified egg white. Of 21 tubes, 19 stopped leaking immediately. The others stopped after a second application ().
Moise had to use antibiotics to quell microbial infections caused by the procedure, which would complicate using it in the body. But as other attempts to seal or patch amnions have been disappointing, the development is a positive step, he says.
