Natural Killer Cells Mediate Pathophysiology in Response to Reduced Uterine Perfusion Pressure

Preeclampsia is associated with hypertension, small-for-gestational-age babies and increased cytolytic natural killer (NK) cells. We hypothesized that Reduced Uterine Perfusion Pressure (RUPP) stimulates proliferation and cytolytic activation of NK cells, and that reducing NK cells in RUPP would prevent hypertension, intrauterine growth restriction, and inflammation in response to placental ischemia.Depletion of NK cells significantly lowered MAP, intrauterine growth restriction, and inflammation in RUPP rats indicating that cytolytic NK cells are important in preeclampsia pathophysiology.