Placental autotaxin expression is diminished in women with pre-eclampsia

Lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) is a member of a new class of lipid mediators and exerts varied physiological and pathological functions. The secreted protein, autotaxin (ATX), is a key enzymatic determinant of local LPA production. The primary aim of this study was to investigate the potential involvement of the placental ATX-LPA system in pre-eclampsia (PE).

We compared human placental ATX mRNA expression in pregnancies complicated by severe PE with that in healthy placentas using real-time polymerase chain reaction. We further assessed whether these expression levels were associated with disease-onset patterns.

Placental transcription of ATX increased progressively during normal pregnancy. In the analysis for pre-eclamptic placentas, the placental ATX expression in the early-onset group, but not in late-onset group, was significantly lower compared to normal controls. Multiple regression analysis revealed that occurrence of early-onset PE, but not late-onset PE, was a variable that was significantly associated with the placental ATX expression level.

These findings support our previous work showing reduced ATX antigen levels in the peripheral blood of pre-eclamptic women. A disturbance in placental ATX production may be linked to poor placental development and systemic maternal symptoms in early-onset PE.