Preeclampsia is associated with a common molecular variant of angiotensinogen (Met235Thr). This variant is in tight linkage disequilibrium with a mutation in the angiotensinogen promoter, G(-6)A, which leads to elevated expression in vitro. Since angiotensin II levels could play a role in atherotic changes of the uterine spiral arteries associated with preeclampsia, we investigated angiotensino...

Placenta increta is an uncommon and life-threatening complication of pregnancy characterized by complete or partial absence of the decidua basalis. Placenta increta usually presents with vaginal bleeding during difficult placental removal in the third-trimester. Although placenta increta may complicate first and early second-trimester pregnancy loss, the diagnosis can be very difficult during e...

The endothelins are signalling peptides that act via two receptors, ET(A) and ET(B). In the human endometrium, endothelin receptors have been demonstrated in glands and stroma and have been shown to vary during the course of the menstrual cycle. The present study was undertaken to determine whether or not expression of endothelin receptors changes during pregnancy or after administration of exo...

To invade the decidua and myometrium, extravillous trophoblast must degrade an assortment of extracellular matrix (ECM) components. The uterine wall is rich in heparan sulphate proteoglycans (HSPG), which interact with collagen, laminin and fibronectin, and bind a variety of growth factors. HSPG are catabolised by heparanase, an enzyme that is highly expressed in the placenta. The aim of this s...

Cytokines such as monocyte chemotactic peptide-1 (MCP-1), interleukin-8 (IL-8), RANTES (Regulated on Activation and Normally T-cells Expressed and presumably Secreted) and interleukin-10 (IL-10) are thought to play pivotal roles in immune recognition, acceptance of the fetal allograft, maintenance of pregnancy and parturition. Their secretion and regulation within the third trimester uterus is,...

Suggestions that local intrauterine materno-fetal immune interactions may be important for normal pregnancy have led to investigation of immunoregulatory function by decidualised endometrium. Human decidua is complex and cell types may be difficult to distinguish at the light microscope level. Immunohistochemical techniques have allowed antigenic identification of cells within decidua and abund...

Murine knock-out models and blastocyst co-culture studies have identified prostaglandin-endoperoxide synthase (PTGS) 2, prostaglandin (PG) E receptor 2 (PTGER2) and the chemokine receptor CXCR4 as important regulators of early pregnancy events. In vitro studies and studies in non-human primates have shown that these proteins are regulated in the endometrium by the early embryonic signal, chorio...

Spontaneous abortion is the most common complication of pregnancy. Several lines of evidence indicate that immunologic effector cells may play a role in the pathogenesis of idiopathic repetitive abortions. Leukocytes form a substantial proportion of stromal cells in decidua and the endometrial granulated lymphocytes (eGL) is the predominant decidual leukocyte population in the first trimester o...

The Thomsen-Friedenreich antigen (TF), or more precisely epitope, has been known as a pancarcinoma antigen. It consists of galactose-beta1-3-N-acetylgalactose. We have already described the expression of TF in the normal placenta. TF is expressed by the syncytium and by extravillous trophoblast cells. In this study, we investigated the expression of TF in the abort placenta. Frozen samples of h...