Effects of melatonin on anti-oxidant gene expression in primary human placenta.

<p>Normal term placental explant tissue, isolated primary cytotrophoblasts and human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) were treated with melatonin (100–1000μM placental explant tissue and 1–1000μM for isolated cells) for 48 hours. Placental explant tissue mRNA expression for heme-oxygenase 1 (HO-1) (A), glutamate-cysteine ligase (GCLC) (B), NAD(P)H:quinone acceptor oxidoreductase 1 (NQO1) (C) and thioredoxin (TXN) (D) follwoing melatonin treatment. Densitometric analysis of placental explant NQO1 protein levels with melatonin treatment (E). Primary trophoblast mRNA expression of HO-1 (F), GCLC (G), NQO1 (H) and TXN (I) with melatonin treatment. Primary HUVEC mRNA expression of HO-1 (J), GCLC (K), NQO1 (L) and TXN (M). Experiments were performed with technical triplicates and all experiments were repeated a minimum of three times. Data is expressed as the mean % change from control ± SEM. All data were analyzed by Kruskal-Wallis followed by Dunn’s multiple comparisons test (*p≤ 0.05; **p≤ 0.01).