Publication Date:
2008-05-13
Description:
Despite intense investigation, mechanisms that facilitate the emergence of the pre-eclampsia phenotype in women are still unknown. Placental hypoxia, hypertension, proteinuria and oedema are the principal clinical features of this disease. It is speculated that hypoxia-driven disruption of the angiogenic balance involving vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)/placenta-derived growth factor (PLGF) and soluble Fms-like tyrosine kinase-1 (sFLT-1, the soluble form of VEGF receptor 1) might contribute to some of the maternal symptoms of pre-eclampsia. However, pre-eclampsia does not develop in all women with high sFLT-1 or low PLGF levels, and it also occurs in some women with low sFLT-1 and high PLGF levels. Moreover, recent experiments strongly suggest that several soluble factors affecting the vasculature are probably elevated because of placental hypoxia in the pre-eclamptic women, indicating that upstream molecular defect(s) may contribute to pre-eclampsia. Here we show that pregnant mice deficient in catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) show a pre-eclampsia-like phenotype resulting from an absence of 2-methoxyoestradiol (2-ME), a natural metabolite of oestradiol that is elevated during the third trimester of normal human pregnancy. 2-ME ameliorates all pre-eclampsia-like features without toxicity in the Comt(-/-) pregnant mice and suppresses placental hypoxia, hypoxia-inducible factor-1alpha expression and sFLT-1 elevation. The levels of COMT and 2-ME are significantly lower in women with severe pre-eclampsia. Our studies identify a genetic mouse model for pre-eclampsia and suggest that 2-ME may have utility as a plasma and urine diagnostic marker for this disease, and may also serve as a therapeutic supplement to prevent or treat this disorder.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Kanasaki, Keizo -- Palmsten, Kristin -- Sugimoto, Hikaru -- Ahmad, Shakil -- Hamano, Yuki -- Xie, Liang -- Parry, Samuel -- Augustin, Hellmut G -- Gattone, Vincent H -- Folkman, Judah -- Strauss, Jerome F -- Kalluri, Raghu -- DK 13193/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/ -- DK 55001/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/ -- DK 61688/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/ -- DK 62987/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/ -- G0700288/Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- R01 DK055001/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/ -- R01 DK061688/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/ -- British Heart Foundation/United Kingdom -- Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- England -- Nature. 2008 Jun 19;453(7198):1117-21. doi: 10.1038/nature06951. Epub 2008 May 11.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Division of Matrix Biology, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18469803" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Albumins/analysis
;
Animals
;
Anoxia/metabolism
;
Blood Pressure
;
Catechol O-Methyltransferase/analysis/*deficiency/genetics
;
Creatinine/urine
;
Disease Models, Animal
;
Estradiol/*analogs & derivatives/blood/*deficiency/urine
;
Female
;
Humans
;
Hypertension
;
Hypoxia-Inducible Factor 1, alpha Subunit/metabolism
;
Killer Cells, Natural/immunology
;
Litter Size
;
Male
;
Mice
;
Placenta/enzymology/pathology
;
Pre-Eclampsia/blood/enzymology/*metabolism/urine
;
Pregnancy
;
Proteinuria
;
Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Receptor-1/blood
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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