Correlations between circulating levels of adipokines and anti-angiogenic factors in women with BMI <30 and a late-onset preeclampsia

Abstract

Preeclampsia (PE) is a pregnancy-specific disease, directly related to high rates of maternal-fetal morbidity and mortality worldwide. Upregulation of anti-angiogenic factors (soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase-1; sFLT-1 and soluble endoglin; sENG) have been suggested to trigger the maternal endothelial dysfunction observed in PE. Studies focusing on the role of adiponectin and leptin, in normal pregnancy as well as in complicated pregnancies, have revelated interesting findings due to the vascular actions of such adipokines. The aims of this study were to compare plasma concentrations of the adiponectin, leptin, sENG and sFLT-1 in preeclamptic (PE, n = 27) and healthy pregnant (HP, n = 36) and to evaluate possible correlations among these adipokines and anti-angiogenic factors. There were significant increases in all biomarkers in PE compared to HP (all p < 0.05). In PE group, there were positive strong correlations among adiponectin and leptin with sFLT-1 (r = 0.85 and r = 0.47, respectively) and sEng (r = 0.74 and r = 0.56, respectively). Moreover, we observed significantly correlation among body mass index (BMI) with adiponectin (r = -0.40) and with leptin (r = 0.51) in HP, but not in PE. Moreover, while a negative correlation between sFLT-1 and BMI (r = -0.60) was found in PE, no correlation was observed regarding sEng and BMI. In summary, our findings suggest the existence of a compensatory mechanism that occurs in an attempt to correct this angiogenic imbalance in order to restore the fetal development.