Early onset preeclampsia (EOPE) in a model for early stage human placental trophoblast

Early onset preeclampsia (EOPE) affects about 0.4% of pregnancies and is characterized by impaired trophoblast (TB) invasion, resulting in a poorly perfused placenta. Here we have used an in vitro model for mimicking early trophoblast development to determine how early placental development differs between normal pregnancies and those affected by EOPE. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) were generated from umbilical cords of infants born to mothers who had EOPE and from controls. These iPSC were converted to TB, by exposing them to BMP4 and inhibitors of ACTIVIN A and FGF2 signaling (BAP treatment), under 5 % and 20 % O2, hypothesizing that 20% O2 would act as a stressor. Two embryonic stem cell lines (ESC; H1 and H9), 8 control (CTL) iPSC and 14 EOPE iPSC were tested to assess how well the differentiated TB cells invaded through a Matrigel-coated membrane. To identify gene expression changes that might be driving the invasion defect in EOPE-TB at 20% O2, RNA was collected from CTL-TB (n = 10) and EOPE-TB (n = 14) cultured in both O2 conditions for sequencing.