Heat shock proteins - - their role in diagnosis and prognosis of pregnancy related complications

Heat shock proteins increase their gene expression after exposure of cells or organisms to some forms of stress, which may be high temperature, infection, inflammation, hypoxia, lack of nutrients and water. Stressful situations for the body are also pregnancy-related complications associated with placental insufficiency - preeclampsia and IUGR, as well as other pregnancy-related complications such as fetal growth restriction and gestational hypertension. Therefore, I examined whether the occurrence of pregnancy-related complications (preeclampsia, fetal growth retardation, gestational hypertension) affect the gene expression of heat shock proteins. Five hsp systems was detected, namely Hsp27, Hsp60, Hsp70, Hsp90 and HspBP1 in placental tissue samples and whole maternal peripheral blood. Samples came from women with physiological pregnancy and from women with certain pregnancy-related complications (PE, FGR, GH). RNA was isolated from the samples. Detection of hsp expression was performed by using real-time RT-PCR and the comparative Ct method. Changes in gene expression between the test samples and reference sample were examined. To assess the difference between physiological pregnancies and pregnancies with selected pregnancy- related complications, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used...