[Identification of preeclampsia by cDNA-gene expression profiling in human placentas and serum -- a pilot study].
OBJECTIVE
Preeclampsia is associated with significant maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality. The etiology remains unclear. For the accurate diagnosis and the prevention of preeclampsia it seems to be important to find a diagnostic tool that identifies risk patients before symptoms occur. With a new approach, the cDNA-Array analysis, human placentas and blood from preeclamptic and healthy pregnant women were examined for differentially expressed genes to find typical genes expression profiles.


METHODS
In this pilot study, cDNA array analysis with a 19 200 gene array of placenta and blood samples from three preeclamptic patients have been performed to classify this samples based on expression patterns.


RESULTS
Comparing normal placenta and blood from healthy delivered women (n = 4), a subset of 200 genes repeatedly found to be differentially expressed in preeclampsia. The placenta and blood samples from preeclampsia were accurately grouped by their individual gene expression patterns.


CONCLUSIONS
These results suggest that the use of cDNA array is a tool to identify gene expression patterns in preeclampsia. With this set of differentially expressed genes in conjunction with sample clustering algorithms the identification of preeclampsia in placenta or blood samples is possible.
Ahr
A
A
Gynäkologische Praxis am Ziegelturm, Am Ziegelturm 4, 63571 Gelnhausen. Ahr@em.uni-frankfurt.de
Holtrich
U
U
Karn
T
T
Reitter
A
A
Rody
A
A
Kaufmann
M
M
Gätje
R
R
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D006801:Humans; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D010865:Pilot Projects; D010920:Placenta / Q000473:pathology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D011225:Pre-Eclampsia / Q000097:blood / Q000235:genetics*; D011247:Pregnancy; D015203:Reproducibility of Results