Placental Growth Factor Reduces Blood Pressure in a Uteroplacental Ischemia Model of Preeclampsia in Nonhuman Primates.

An imbalance in the angiogenesis axis during pregnancy manifests as clinical preeclampsia because of endothelial dysfunction. Circulating soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase 1 (sFLT-1) increases and placental growth factor (PlGF) reduces before and during disease. We investigated the clinical and biochemical effects of replenishing the reduced circulating PlGF with recombinant human PlGF (rhPlGF) and thus restoring the angiogenic balance.

Tumor necrosis factor α induces a model of preeclampsia in pregnant baboons (Papio hamadryas).

Preeclampsia is a common disease of pregnancy characterised by maternal hypertension and proteinuria. Abnormal placentation in early pregnancy and abnormal cytokine and anti-angiogenic factor expression are thought to contribute to the clinical syndrome of endothelial dysfunction evident in the second half of gestation. The mechanisms underlying both the placental pathology and its translation to the maternal clinical syndrome are not fully understood.

Effect of hypoxia and exogenous IL-10 on the pro-inflammatory cytokine TNF-alpha and the anti-angiogenic molecule soluble Flt-1 in placental villous explants.

Introduction: The placenta plays a pivotal role in the pathophysiology of preeclampsia. Insufficient trophoblast invasion within the placenta can cause focal regions of ischaemia/hypoxia that, in turn, may stimulate the production of inflammatory cytokines. These cytokines are thought to cause endothelial cell activation and dysfunction, resulting in the clinical signs of preeclampsia.

Yeast diversity sampling on the San Juan Islands reveals no evidence for the spread of the Vancouver Island Cryptococcus gattii outbreak to this locale.

Biological diversity has been estimated for various phyla of life, such as insects and mammals, but in the microbe world is has been difficult to determine species richness and abundance. Here we describe a study of species diversity of fungi with a yeast-like colony morphology from the San Juan Islands, a group of islands that lies southeast of Vancouver Island, Canada. Our sampling revealed that the San Juan archipelago biosphere contains a diverse range of such fungi predominantly belonging to the Basidiomycota, particularly of the order Tremellales.