Hyaluronan and CD44 in maternal serum from pre-eclampsia

Background: Pre-eclampsia is associated with serum factors which can activa te blood vessel endothelial cells. Hyaluronan (HYA) and its specific recept or CD44 play a central role in cell activation processes. Our study focusse d on the behavior of serum concentrations of HYA and the soluble standard f orm of CD44 (sCD44std) in the maternal serum from normotensive and pre-ecla mptic pregnancies. Patients and methods: Serum was collected from normotensive pregnant woman (n = 10) and from pregnant women with a severe pre-eclampsia (n = 10). HYA- serum concentrations were measured with a radioimmunoassay while sCD44std w ere measured with an ELISA. Results: The pre-eclampsia group shows a significant (p < 0.001, Mann and W hitney u-test) increased HYA serum concentration (median 79 ng/ml, range 53 -165 ng/ml) when compared to the normotensive group (n = 10, median 32 ng/m l, range 19-59 ng/ml). sCD44std-serum-concentration in the pre-eclampsia gr oup (328.3 +/- 68.3 ng/ml) was weakly higher but not statistically signific ant (p > 0.05) when compared to the normotensive group (292.9 +/- 74.0 ng/m l). There exist no correlations between the HYA and sCD44std serum concentr ations in both preeclamptic and normotensive groups. Conclusion: The increased HYA-serum-concentration may indicate a pathophysi ological role of the HYA/CD44-signal transduction system in pre-eclampsia. The existing overlap of HYA serum levels in the pre-eclampsia group with HY A serum levels in the normotensive control group limits the diagnostic prec ision of HYA serum concentration as a diagnostic parameter in pre-eclampsia . According CD44 it is not excluded that serum concentration of other solub le CD44-isoforms is increased in pre-eclampsia.