Deoxyribonuclease activity in plasma of pregnant women and experimental animals

Abstract

Clinical observations and animal experiments have shown that higher fetal DNA in maternal plasma could participate on the pathogenesis of preeclampsia. The understudied factor that could participate in interindividual variability in cell-free DNA is enzymatic activity of deoxyribonuclease (DNase). We have found that healthy pregnant animals have higher plasma DNase activity than healthy pregnant women. Injection of cell-free fetal DNA into pregnant animals had no effect on DNase activity. Interspecies differences in DNase activity should be considered in animal experiments focusing on the role of fetal DNA in preeclampsia and cell-free DNA in other disease models.

Keywords:

• Fetal DNA
• deoxyribonuclease
• preeclampsia
• pregnancy complications
• animal model

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This publication is the result of the project implementation: Comenius University Science Park – 2.phase, ITMS 2014+ 313021D075 supported by the Research & Innovation Operational Programme funded by the European Regional Development Fund.