title: Concentrations of endothelin-1 in maternal and umbilical cord blood at various stages of pregnancy.
abstract: To examine the role of endothelin (ET) in the maternal and fetal circulation, the levels of endothelin-1-like immunoreactivity (ET-1-LI) in the plasma of maternal vein (MV), umbilical vein (UV), and umbilical artery (UA) were determined by a sensitive radioimmunoassay (RIA). Levels of ET-1-LI in MV did not show any significant change (9.9 +/- 1.5 pg/ml, n = 26) throughout normal pregnancy and were similar to those of normal nonpregnant women (10.7 +/- 2.5 pg/ml, n = 5). Levels of ET-1-LI in UV and UA obtained at normal deliveries at term were about three times higher than those in MV. In the patients with mild and severe pre-eclampsia, the levels of plasma ET-1-LI were significantly higher than those of normal pregnancy (14.3 +/- 2.2 pg/ml, n = 5 and 27.2 +/- 8.6 pg/ml, n = 5, respectively). However, in pregnant women with chronic hypertension, the levels of ET-1-LI did not increase when the hypertension did not worsen during pregnancy (11.4 +/- 1.6 pg/ml, n = 7). Moreover, in two pregnant women with abnormally stimulated coagulation, such as acute or subacute DIC, the levels of ET-1-LI were extremely high and returned gradually to those of normal nonpregnant women after the coagulation was normalized by treatment. These results suggest the possibility that ET-1 plays an important role in the pathophysiology of preeclampsia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medicine, Kyoto University, Japan.
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ihara
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sagawa
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hasegawa
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Okagaki
authors.forename: X M
authors.initials: XM
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Inamori
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Itoh
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mori
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Saito
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Shirakami
mesh_terms: D002850:Chromatography, Gel; D016232:Endothelins / Q000097:blood*; D005260:Female; D005312:Fetal Blood / Q000737:chemistry*; D005865:Gestational Age; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000097:blood; D011225:Pre-Eclampsia / Q000097:blood; D011247:Pregnancy / Q000097:blood*; D011249:Pregnancy Complications, Cardiovascular / Q000097:blood; D011863:Radioimmunoassay
chemical_list: D016232:Endothelins