Comparative Proteomic Profile of the Human Umbilical Cord Blood Exosomes between Normal and Preeclampsia Pregnancies with High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry.

BACKGROUND/AIMS Exosomes are extracellular vesicles that are involved in several biological processes. The roles of proteins from human umbilical cord blood exosomes in the pathogenesis of preeclampsia remains poorly understood. METHODS In this study, we used high-resolution LC-MS/MS technologies to construct a comparative proteomic profiling of human umbilical cord blood exosomes between normal and preeclamptic pregnancies. RESULTS A total of 221 proteins were detected in human umbilical cord blood exosomes, with 14 upregulated and 15 downregulated proteins were definitively identified between preeclamptic and control pregnancies. Further bioinformatics analysis (Gene ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway analysis) indicated that these differentially expressed proteins correlate with enzyme regulator activity, binding, extracellular region, cell part, biological regulation, cellular process and complement and coagulation cascades occurring during pathological changes of preeclampsia. CONCLUSION Our results show significantly altered expression profiles of proteins in human umbilical cord blood exosomes between normal and preeclampsia pregnancies. These proteins may be involved in the etiology of preeclampsia.