Relationship between myometrial resistance artery behavior and circulatinglipid composition

OBJECTIVES: The study investigated whether an inducible alteration in endot helium-dependent relaxation in myometrial vessels could be correlated with plasma lipid composition. STUDY DESIGN: Myometrial resistance vessels were obtained from 10 women wit h normal pregnancy undergoing elective cesarean delivery. Paired vessels we re incubated with plasma samples from patients with preeclampsia or from wo men with normal pregnancy and mounted on a wire myograph. After contraction with vasopressin, the degree of relaxation in response to bradykinin was o bserved. Plasma samples were assayed for cholesterol, triglycerides, apolip oprotein A(1), and apolipoprotein B. RESULTS: A significant reduction in endothelium-dependent relaxation with r espect to control values was observed in vessels incubated in plasma sample s from patients with preeclampsia (P = .0001). Although no significant diff erence was noted between the lipid profiles of the 2 subgroups, a significa nt correlation was found between the vessel relaxation and the plasma conte nt of apolipoprotein A(1) (R-2 = 0.36, P = .025). CONCLUSION: Plasma samples from women with pregnancies complicated by preec lampsia are capable of altering endothelium-dependent myometrial vessel rel axation. A significant relationship between the apolipoprotein Al concentra tion and endothelial behavior supports the suggestion that aberrant lipid m etabolism may be involved in the endothelial dysfunction characteristic of preeclampsia.