Serum microRNA expression in pregnancies with preeclampsia

Abstract

Preeclampsia continues to be a mortal disease of pregnant women throughout the world. Recently, geneticists, allied with obstetricians, have opened new frontiers. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are members of a class of small, noncoding RNA molecules. They are critical posttranscriptional regulators of gene expression. We extracted circulating miRNA from maternal plasma and quantified mir152 and mir-210. We found up-regulated miR-210 levels as well as down-regulated mir-152 levels in preeclampsia patients. We propose that detection of increased mir-210 levels in maternal serum could be used to improve prediction methods for noninvasive prenatal diagnosis of preeclampsia.