�Biochemists at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston say they are the first to provide preclinical evidence that pregnancy-induced high blood pressure or pre-eclampsia may be an autoimmune disease. Their research could provide novel diagnostic and therapeutic possibilities for this intractable disease. Findings seem online in Nature Medicine on July 27.
Scientists in the testing ground of Yang Xia, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant prof of biochemistry and molecular biology at the UT Medical School at Houston, provided evidence of the connection by inducing symptoms similar to pre-eclampsia in pregnant mice that had been administered autoantibodies isolated from women with the condition. This proof-of-principle experimentation is called adoptive transfer.
Pre-eclampsia typically occurs in the last trimester of pregnancy and is characterized by a sudden increase in blood pressure sensation, excess protein in the urine and swelling of the men, feet and face. It affects around one in 20 pregnancies and the only cure is
