Abstract
Preeclampsia and HIV are a significant burden to maternal health globally, especially in low-middle income countries such as South Africa. In the KwaZulu-Natal province, SA antenatal HIV prevalence is 41.1%, while PE is 12%. PE and HIV infections are maternal stress and inflammation that impact placental function and fetal development. Therefore, this study investigated the impact of the comorbidity of PE and HIV on placental stress and neurodevelopment. Placentae were obtained from four cohorts of pregnant women: normotensive HIV negative, normotensive HIV positive, preeclamptic HIV negative, and preeclamptic HIV positive. The placental tissue sections were immunostained for OGT and T4. Our findings showed that the maternal weight, diastolic, and systolic blood pressures (BP) were higher in PE vs. the normotensive groups, irrespective of HIV status. In addition, significant changes were noticed in the placental weight, fetoplacental ratio, and placental efficiency coefficient. Our findings showed that the maternal weight, diastolic, and systolic blood pressures (BP) were statistically higher in the PE compared to the normotensive. No significant differences were observed between HIV positive and HIV negative groups. In addition, significant changes were noticed in the placental weight, fetoplacental ratio, and placental coefficient. Furthermore, considerable upregulation in the placental expression of OGT in both the conducting and exchange villi of PE and concomitant downregulation in HIV-positive patients compared with Normotensive and HIV-negative individuals, respectively. Our results provide inferential evidence on the dysregulation of OGT in the comorbidity of PE and HIV. This may mediate a compromised programmed outcome of an adverse maternal environment during pregnancy and consequently affect fetal development.
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NRN and PDS are supported by the NICHD grant #R01HD088549 at UMKC and the content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the US National Institutes of Health”. TN and PDS are supported by the International Brain Research Organization-African Regional Committee (IBRO-ARC), 2017 and International Society for Neurochemistry/International Brain Research Organization (ISN/IBRO) Postdoctoral fellowship, 2017.
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PDS, TN and NRN conceived and designed the study. PDS processed the samples. All authors participated in the data analysis and manuscript preparation. All authors read the final version of the manuscript.
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The authors declare no competing financial interests. The Department of Health and the institutional Biomedical Research Ethics Committee (Reference Number: BE 183/17) granted permission for this study. The study was conducted per the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Institutional Review Board (or Ethics Committee) of the University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa, and the University of Missouri Kansas City.
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Shallie, P.D., Naicker, T. & Nayak, N.R. Stress-Sensitive Regulators of Fetal Neurodevelopment in HIV and Preeclampsia: An Immunocytochemical Appraisal of Placental OGT and T4 Levels. Arch. Immunol. Ther. Exp. 71, 3 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00005-023-00668-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00005-023-00668-x