Increased circulating lipid peroxides in severe preeclampsia activate NF-kappaB and upregulate ICAM-1 in vascular endothelial cells.

Preeclampsia is a systemic disease of pregnancy characterized by maternal hypertension, proteinuria, and edema. These clinical pathological findings may be attributed to abnormalities in vascular endothelial activation secondary to increased oxidative stress. To test the hypothesis that increased circulating lipid peroxides in preeclamptic women activate vascular endothelial cells, we determined NF-kappaB transcriptional activity and ICAM-1 expression in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) cultured with plasma from women with severe preeclampsia (preeclamptic plasma, N = 12) or plasma from normal pregnancies (normal plasma, N = 12). Preeclamptic women had increased circulating lipid peroxides compared with normal pregnant women, as demonstrated by a 4.5-fold higher concentration of plasma malondialdehyde (PkB luciferase reporter construct transfected into HUVEC, preeclamptic plasma was found to up-regulate HUVEC NF-kappaB activity by 2.5-fold when compared with normal plasma (PkB activation in response to preeclamptic-plasma by 77% (PkB activation and ICAM-1 expression on HUVEC, which can be inhibited by vitamin E and N-acetyl-cysteine.