Abstract
Several studies point to the placenta as the primary cause of pre-eclampsia. Our objective was to identify placental genes that may contribute to the development of pre-eclampsia. RNA was purified from tissue biopsies from eleven pre-eclamptic placentas and eighteen normal controls. Messenger RNA expression from pooled samples was analysed by microarrays. Verification of the expression of selected genes was performed using real-time PCR. A surprisingly low number of genes (21 out of 15,000) were identified as differentially expressed. Among these were genes not previously associated with pre-eclampsia as bradykinin B1 receptor and a 14-3-3 protein, but also genes that have already been connected with pre-eclampsia, for example, inhibin beta A subunit and leptin. A low number of genes were repeatedly identified as differentially expressed, because they may represent the endpoint of a cascade of events effectuated throughout gestation. They were associated with transcriptional regulation and vasoregulative pathways, along with a number of hypothetical proteins and gene sequences with unknown functions.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology |
| Volume | 2010 |
| Pages (from-to) | 787545 |
| ISSN | 1110-7243 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2010 |
Keywords
- Adult
- Case-Control Studies
- Female
- Gene Expression Profiling
- Humans
- Hypertension
- Infant, Newborn
- Inflammation
- Inhibin-beta Subunits
- Male
- Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis
- Oxidative Stress
- Placenta
- Pre-Eclampsia
- Pregnancy
- Reproducibility of Results
- Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
- Statistics, Nonparametric
- Journal Article
- Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't