Placental Neuropeptide Y ( NPY) and NPY receptors expressions and serum NPY levels in preeclampsia

Abstract

Neuropeptide Y (NPY) has been reported as a vasoconstrictive substance which might be associated with preeclampsia. The novel findings of this study were that Y1R, Y2R, and Y5R expressions were significantly lower in the PE than the NP group. Moreover, the NPY receptor expression ratio between the PE/NP groups was lowest for Y2R (0.27) compared to Y1R (0.42) and Y5R (0.40) suggestive of a reduction of this receptor in the preeclampsia group. Our results suggested that decreased Y2R mRNA in the PE group might be associated with abnormalities of placental angiogenesis which probably contributes to the pathophysiology of preeclampsia.

Keywords: NPY receptors; Preeclampsia; blood pressure; gene expression; neuropeptide Y.

Figure 1.

Comparisons between NPY receptor gene expressions including Y1R, Y2R, and Y5R in all (a), normal pregnancy (NP), and preeclampsia (PE) (b) subjects, and NPY receptor expression ratio between PE/NP subjects in the placenta (c) normalized to TOP1 (reference gene). Data are presented as mean (±S.E.M.). *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01 compared between the NP and PE groups. ^aP < 0.05, ^aaP < 0.01 compared to Y1R in the same group.