Clinical, Biochemical, and Biophysical Markers of Angiogenesis in Preeclampsia

Abstract

Preeclampsia/eclampsia is described as a pregnancy-specific systemic disorder of unknown etiology and is a potentially life-threatening disease with symp- toms related to a general vascular endothelial cell activation and dysfunction. Preeclampsia can be defined as a new onset of hypertension (>140/90 mmHg) after gestational week 20 together with significant proteinuria (300 mg/24 h). Preeclampsia has a complex pathophysiology, the primary cause likely being abnor- mal placentation. Angiogenic factors and biophysical markers may be combined for predicting preeclampsia. Various high-throughput techniques have evolved, thus allowing us simultaneous examination of thousands of genes (genomics), gene transcripts (transcriptomics), proteins (proteomics), metabolites (metabolomics), protein interaction (interactomics), and chromatin modifications (epigenomics) in single experiments, and the results suggest that the use of transcriptomic, pro- teomic, and metabolomic profiles may be predictive for preeclampsia