Background: Pre-eclampsia is a pregnancy-related disorder present in about 5-7% of all pregnancies. CD24 expression was recently reported in different diseases, while it has not yet been determined in pre-eclamptic placental tissues.
Methods: We collected placental tissues from pre-eclamptic (n = 16) and healthy pregnancies (n = 16). We used the quantitative real-time PCR method with a primer-probe system for determination of CD24 gene expression.
Results: We measured CD24 concentrations of 18.94 +/- 26.86 ng/microl in the pre-eclamptic and 53.85 +/- 92.05 ng/microl in the healthy placental tissues (p = 0.03).
Conclusions: The quantitative real-time PCR method is suitable to determine CD24 expression in placental tissues. We suppose the low expression of CD24 may cause the enhanced immune reaction and could play a role in the abnormal development of placenta in pre-eclampsia.
(c) 2008 S. Karger AG, Basel.