The overabundance of a particular gene in the placenta may be the cause for pre-eclampsia, reports a new study published in the journal Placenta.
Pre-eclampsia occurs in about 10 percent of all pregnancies, and is marked by a sudden rise in blood pressure. It is defined only by a set of symptoms because no single cause could previously be found.
Researchers at North Carolina State and the Duke University School of Medicine looked at the placentas from mothers who had suffered pre-eclampsia and compared their genetic makeup to those from normal pregnancies.
"When we looked at the pre-eclampsic placentas, we found that several genes associated with a particular autoimmune pathway were ‘upregulated’ – basically, that there were more of them in placentas of pre-eclampsic women than in normal placentas," explained Dr. Jorge Piedrahita, one of the study’s authors.
In particular, they found an excess of an enzyme called sialic acid acetylesterase (SIAE), a gene that is usually associated with autoimmune disease, a disorder which causes the immune system to begin attacking its host.
"Prior to this research, we knew that there was an autoimmune cascade effect with pre-eclampsia, but we didn’t know where it originated. Now we know that disregulation of SIAE helps start the cascade. We’ve been able to fill in the blanks, and hopefully pregnant women and their babies will benefit as a result," concluded Piedrahita.