PLAC4 is upregulated in severe early onset preeclampsia and upregulated with syncytialisation but not hypoxia

Abstract

Introduction: Severe early onset preeclampsia is one of the most serious complications of pregnancy. Placental specific 4 (PLAC4) is very highly expressed in placenta relative to all other tissues. Recently in a biomarker screening study, we found PLAC4 mRNA was significantly upregulated in maternal whole blood and placenta obtained from cases of severe preeclampsia. Intriguingly however, very little is known about its expression or functional role in either normal pregnancy or pregnancies complicated by preeclampsia. Methods: The objective of this study was to characterize the protein expression and localization of PLAC4 in severe early onset preeclamptic placenta. Given so little of the bi..