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Nature Medicine 14, 810 - 812 (2008)
doi:10.1038/nm0808-810

Putting pressure on pre-eclampsia

Samir M Parikh1 & S Ananth Karumanchi2

  1. Samir M. Parikh is in the Department of Medicine Beth, Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, 330 Brookline Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA.
  2. S. Ananth Karumanchi is in the Departments of Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, 330 Brookline Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA.
    e-mail: sananth@bidmc.harvard.edu

Women with pre-eclampsia, a potentially deadly complication of pregnancy, produce agonistic autoantibodies against angiotensin receptor-1, a transmembrane protein that regulates blood pressure. Findings in mice suggest how these antibodies might help trigger the condition (pages 855–862).

Pre-eclampsia is estimated to affect 5% of all pregnancies worldwide1. The condition, characterized by the onset of maternal hypertension, proteinuria (abnormal spillage of plasma proteins into the urine) and edema after 20 weeks of gestation, can progress to injure the blood vessels of major organs such as the liver and the brain—making it a deadly disease, particularly in settings where tertiary obstetrical care is lacking.

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