Analysis of the role of HLA-G in preeclampsia

Preeclampsia (PE) is a multisystem disorder of human pregnancy, occuring in 5%-10% of all population births and represents the leading cause of both f etal and maternal morbidity and mortality in pregnancy. Although the disord er only becomes clinicaly apparent late in pregnancy, the underlying pathol ogy indicates that invasion of fetal trophoblasts into maternal spiral arte ries during early pregnancy is shallow or absent in PE. A large number of e pidemiologic studies have been carried out and they demonstrate that the di sorder is highly heritable and occurs with a high incidence in all populati ons. Studies have shown that PE is largely under generic control, but the m ode of its inheritance remains unclear. Genetic studies have been carried o ut using both large scale linkage analysis and candidate gene approaches; h owever, the genetic mechanisms underlying the disorder have yet to be deter mined. We focuss on the potential role of HLA-G, a nonclassical class I HLA located on chromosome 6, which appears to be a key component in trophoblas t invasion. We examine the hypothesis that HLA-G may have a key role in bot h genetic susceptibility to, and pathogenesis of, PE. (C) American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics, 2000. Published by Elsevier Scie nce Inc.