Higher expression of HSP70 and LOX-1 in the placental tissues of pre-eclampsia pregnancies

Abstract

Background: Pre-eclampsia, a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy is the main cause of fetal and maternal morbidity and mortality. Growing evidences suggest that placental oxidative stress involves in the pathogenesis of pre-eclampsia. The HSP70 is a novel marker of oxidative stress which binds with high avidity to LOX-1. The aim of this study was to evaluate the co-expression of HSP70 and LOX-1 in the placental tissues of normotensive and pre-eclamptic pregnancies.

Materials and methods: The placental tissues were collected from 35 healthy women with normal pregnancies and 33 women with pre-eclampsia disorder. Expression of HSP70 and LOX-1 on the placental tissues was examined by using immunohistochemistry technique. The intensity of the molecules' expression was determined by semi-quantitative scoring.

Results: The 34.3% and 37.1% of the healthy women did not express the HSP70 and LOX-1 on their placenta, respectively. All pre-eclamptic patients expressed HSP70 and LOX-1 with various scores. Indeed, the majority of the pre-eclamptic subjects had ≥3+ scores of the expression of HSP70 and LOX-1 on their placenta (60.6% and 66.7%, respectively). The percentage of the ≥3+ scores of the expression of HSP70 and LOX-1 was significantly higher in patients than those in healthy women (p < 0.0001 for both). Similarly, the majority of the pre-eclamptic subjects had ≥3+ scores of the co-expression of HSP70 and LOX-1 molecules (57.6%) which was significantly higher in patients than those in control group (p = 0.0001).

Conclusions: These results showed higher expression of HSP70 and LOX-1 in the placental tissues of pre-eclampsia patients which represent the possible contribution of these molecules in the disease pathogenesis. Further studies need to clarify their role in the pathogenesis of preeclampsia disorder.

• Co-expression
• HSP70
• LOX-1
• placenta
• pre-eclampsia

Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Chandrakant Tayade, Sophia Virani and Lee Boudreau from Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Queen's University for assistance in immunohistochemistry.

Declaration of interest

Funding was provided by Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran and Dezful University of Medical Sciences, Dezful, Iran to Dr Abdolkarim Sheikhi. The authors report no conflicts of interest.