Journal of Proteomics & Bioinformatics
Open Access

Abstract

Proteomics Analysis of Preeclampsia, a Systematic Review of Maternal and Fetal Compartments

Frances Wong and Brian Cox

Preeclampsia is a relatively common hypertensive disorder of pregnancy that remains a high cause of maternal and fetal death due to the lack of early detection and treatment options. While the etiology is unclear, the placenta is the origin of preeclampsia and it releases factors into maternal circulation to induce systemic endothelial dysfunction. Preeclampsia is a heterogeneous condition and a single biomarker is likely incapable of identifying all women at risk of developing the condition. Proteomic efforts have been largely directed to analysis of maternal blood serum or the placental tissue. Altered protein expression in the placenta suggests a role in the development of preeclampsia while altered protein expression in maternal serum indicates factors secreted from the placenta or maternal responses to these factors.

In this systemic review, 12 studies comparing samples from preeclamptic and normotensive pregnancies using mass spectrometry based techniques were selected and 401 proteins with significantly altered expression in preeclampsia were observed across all studies. Inter-study comparison identified 52 proteins as significant in two or more studies. These 52 proteins were enriched for 22 pathways, including several previously implicated in preeclampsia such as hemostasis, immune response, and lipid metabolism which is a focus of this analysis. Significantly, the proteins complement component 4 and apolipoprotein E were observed with aberrant expression at week 12 before the clinical diagnosis of preeclampsia indicating promising roles as clinical biomarkers. Future studies of secretions from placenta villi explants can relate misrepresented proteins in the placenta to the altered protein profile in the maternal circulation resulting in systemic dysfunction.