Our preeclampsia study is now out in Med! We are hugely proud of this somewhat unexpected work outside the nervous system, which came out of an excellent clinical collaboration with obstetrician Ido Solt of Rambam Health Care Campus, and Simcha Yagel at Hadassah in Jerusalem.

Preeclampsia is a disorder affecting 5-7% of all pregnancies, where it is manifested high blood pressure of the mother in the second half of her pregnancy. The disease is potentially life-threatening, and complex; it varies in symptoms, onset and severity. And still today, once diagnosed, the only “treatment” is to deliver the baby and placenta. Even this comes with significant risks, especially at earlier pregnancy stages.

Inbal and Niv in the lab were interested to understand why preeclampsia comes in so many different shapes – what are the molecular processes underlying the early- and late-onset types of the disease?

They collected placenta from patients suffering from this hypertensive pregnancy disorder, at early or late stages of the disease, and healthy, gestation-matched controls. In the study we describe massive molecular differences – that may have direct clinical impact in how the two subtypes need distinct treatments.

Read the study open access online (and here’s the full PDF), and explore the expression of your favorite genes across placental cell types, in health and disease, in our accessible online Resource. Single-cell and single-nuclei RNA-seq data, and all our code are also available of course.