Preeclampsia/Eclampsia candidate genes show altered methylation in maternal leukocytes of preeclamptic women at the time of delivery

Hypertens Pregnancy. 2016 Aug;35(3):394-404. doi: 10.3109/10641955.2016.1162315. Epub 2016 Apr 11.

Abstract

Objective: To analyze methylation profiles of known preeclampsia/eclampsia (PE) candidate genes in normal (NL) and preeclamptic (PE) women at delivery.

Methods: A matched case-control study comparing methylation in 79 CpG sites/33 genes from an independent gene set in maternal leukocyte DNA in PE and NL (n = 14 each) on an Illumina BeadChip platform. Replication performed on second cohort (PE = 12; NL = 32).

Results: PE demonstrates differential methylation in POMC, AGT, CALCA, and DDAH1 compared with NL.

Conclusion: Differential methylation in four genes associated with PE may represent a potential biomarker or an epigenetic pathophysiologic mechanism altering gene transcription.

Keywords: AGT; CALCA; DDAH1; DNA methylation; POMC; candidate gene; leukocyte; preeclampsia; pregnancy.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Amidohydrolases / genetics
  • Amidohydrolases / metabolism
  • Angiotensinogen / genetics
  • Angiotensinogen / metabolism
  • Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide / genetics
  • Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide / metabolism
  • Case-Control Studies
  • CpG Islands
  • DNA Methylation
  • Eclampsia / genetics*
  • Eclampsia / metabolism
  • Female
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Humans
  • Leukocytes / metabolism*
  • Parturition / physiology*
  • Pre-Eclampsia / genetics*
  • Pre-Eclampsia / metabolism
  • Pregnancy
  • Pro-Opiomelanocortin / genetics
  • Pro-Opiomelanocortin / metabolism
  • Young Adult

Substances

  • AGT protein, human
  • CALCA protein, human
  • Angiotensinogen
  • Pro-Opiomelanocortin
  • Amidohydrolases
  • dimethylargininase
  • Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide