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Updated: Jul 5, 2026
Assessment of Maternal Vascular Remodeling During Pregnancy in the Mouse Uterus
Published on: December 5, 2015
Angiogenesis gene expression in mouse uterus during the common pathway of parturition
Ramsi Haddad1, Roberto Romero, Barbara R Gould
1Perinatology Research Branch, Division of Intramural Research, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
Objective:
The objective of the study was to investigate changes in the expression of angiogenesis-related genes during the common terminal pathway of parturition including spontaneous labor at term, as well as preterm labor (PTL), induced by either bacteria or ovariectomy.
Study Design:
Preterm pregnant mice (14.5 days of gestation) were treated with the following: (1) intrauterine injection of media; (2) intrauterine injection of heat-inactivated Escherichia coli; (3) ovariectomy; and (4) sham operation. Tissues from mice at term (19.5 days of gestation) were collected at term not in labor, term in labor, and 12 hours postpartum. Angiogenesis-related gene expression levels were quantitated by the measurement of specific mRNAs in uterine tissue by RT-qPCR and analyzed by repeated-measures analysis of variance.
Results:
The following results were found: (1) microarray analysis of the uterine transcriptome indicated an enrichment for the gene ontology category of angiogenesis in bacteria-induced PTL samples (P < or = .093); (2) several genes related to angiogenesis demonstrated significantly increased expression in samples in either term spontaneous labor or preterm labor; and (3) qRT-PCR measurements demonstrated that spontaneous term labor and preterm labor induced by either bacteria or ovariectomy all substantially increased the expression of multiple angiogenesis-related genes (P < or = .0003; Angpt2, Ctgf, Cyr61, Dscr1, Pgf, Serpine1, Thbs1, and Wisp 1).
Conclusion:
Spontaneous labor at term, as well as pathologically induced preterm labor, all result in greatly increased expression of angiogenesis-related genes in the uterus.
