Konečná Barbora, Vlková Barbora, Repiská Gabriela, Tóthová Ľubomíra
Institute of Molecular Biomedicine, Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University in Bratislava, Sasinkova 4, Bratislava, Slovakia.
Institute of Molecular Biomedicine, Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University in Bratislava, Sasinkova 4, Bratislava, Slovakia.
Med Hypotheses. 2020 Aug;141:109721. doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2020.109721. Epub 2020 Apr 8.
The role of extracellular vesicles is widely studied. As well as other organs, placenta produces extracellular vesicles during both, normal and pathological pregnancies. During pregnancy, placental/fetal free DNA circulates in maternal blood. Concentrations of free placental DNA are much higher when pregnancy complications of various etiologies occur. Such a complication could be preeclampsia. In our previous animal model, administration of pure DNA isolated from fetus did not induce any prenatal complications. Here we hypothesize that in real life during preeclampsia or other pregnancy complications, placental DNA might be transported by extracellular vesicles to maternal cells. Also, our preliminary data prove that placental DNA is present in circulating exosomes in maternal blood. Therefore, a lipid bilayer of extracellular vesicles could protect DNA from degradation by enzymes. Extracellular vesicles tend to merge with other cells, therefore, following expression of fetal genes from placental extracellular vesicles in maternal cells could lead to an immune response already observed in pregnancy complications. Future studies should be mainly focused on verification of our hypothesis and evaluate the potential of placental/fetal extracellular vesicles and their gene transfer in preeclampsia or other pregnancy complications.
细胞外囊泡的作用得到了广泛研究。与其他器官一样，胎盘在正常和病理妊娠期间都会产生细胞外囊泡。在怀孕期间，胎盘/胎儿游离DNA会在母体血液中循环。当发生各种病因的妊娠并发症时，游离胎盘DNA的浓度会高得多。这样的并发症可能是子痫前期。在我们之前的动物模型中，给予从胎儿分离出的纯DNA不会诱发任何产前并发症。在此我们推测，在现实生活中，子痫前期或其他妊娠并发症期间，胎盘DNA可能通过细胞外囊泡转运至母体细胞。此外，我们的初步数据证明，母体血液中的循环外泌体中存在胎盘DNA。因此，细胞外囊泡的脂质双层可以保护DNA不被酶降解。细胞外囊泡倾向于与其他细胞融合，因此，母体细胞中胎盘细胞外囊泡表达胎儿基因后可能会引发在妊娠并发症中已经观察到的免疫反应。未来的研究应主要集中于验证我们的假设，并评估胎盘/胎儿细胞外囊泡及其基因转移在子痫前期或其他妊娠并发症中的潜力。
