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Placental oxidative stress and maternal endothelial function in pregnant women with normotensive fetal growth
Atsumi Yoshida1, Kazushi Watanabe1, Ai Iwasaki1
1a Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology , Aichi Medical University School of Medicine , Nagakute , Aichi , Japan.
Objective:
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between placental oxidative stress and maternal endothelial function in pregnant women with normotensive fetal growth restriction (FGR).
Methods:
We examined serum concentrations of oxygen free radicals (d-ROMs), maternal angiogenic factor (PlGF), and sFlt-1, placental oxidative DNA damage, and maternal endothelial function in 17 women with early-onset preeclampsia (PE), 18 with late-onset PE, 14 with normotensive FGR, and 21 controls. Flow-mediated vasodilation (FMD) was assessed as a marker of maternal endothelial function. Immunohistochemical analysis was performed to measure the proportion of placental trophoblast cell nuclei staining positive for 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG), a marker of oxidative DNA damage.
Results:
Maternal serum d-ROM, sFlt-1 concentrations, and FMD did not significantly differ between the control and normotensive FGR groups. The proportion of nuclei staining positive for 8-OHdG was significantly higher in the normotensive FGR group relative to the control group.
Conclusions:
Our findings demonstrate that, despite the presence of placental oxidative DNA damage as observed in PE patients, pregnant women with normotensive FGR show no increase in the concentrations of sFlt-1 and d-ROMs, or a decrease in FMD.