Abstract:
Pre-eclampsia is a disorder of human pregnancy occuring in 5-10 % of all births, and represents the leading cause of infant morbidity and mortality and maternal death. In pre-eclampsia, invasion of fetal trophoblasts into maternal arteries during early pregnancy is shallow or absent. Here we examined the hypothesis that HLA-G, a non-classical class I HLA expressed in cytotrophoblasts, may act as a key gene in pre-eclampsia. We analysed HLA-G at the level of transcription and genotyped a silent CAC-CAT polymorphism in exon 3 and a 14-bp insertion/deletion in the 3′ untranslated region. A deficit in levels of the HLA-G3 transcript was observed in mild pre-eclampsia compared to normal placentas. The distribution of HLA-G polymorphisms was different between normal and pre-eclampsia samples. A correlation between the alteration in transcription of the HLA-G gene and certain HLA-G genotypes was also observed. Thus we provide the first evidence for a possible role of HLA-G in genetic susceptibility to, and pathogenesis of pre-eclampsia.
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Received 8 May 2001; received after revision 7 September 2001; accepted 11 September 2001
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O'Brien, M., McCarthy, T., Jenkins, D. et al. Altered HLA-G transcription in pre-eclampsia is associated with allele specific inheritance: possible role of the HLA-G gene in susceptibility to the disease. CMLS, Cell. Mol. Life Sci. 58, 1943–1949 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/PL00000828
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/PL00000828