The bioflavonoid quercetin improves pathophysiology in a rat model of preeclampsia.

Preeclampsia (PE) is a pregnancy-specific hypertensive syndrome and is a leading risk of thousands of patient and offspring's deaths worldwide with no effective therapies but early delivery. Quercetin is associated with multiple pathways that link placental dysfunction with the maternal system phenotypes in the pathogenesis of PE, however, whether quercetin can be used to treat preeclampsia is not known. We employed a preeclampsia animal model induced by ultra-low-dose endotoxin infusion and monitored angiogenic factors, inflammatory response and oxidative stress changes after quercetin treatment. We showed that quercetin attenuated multi-pathophysiology changes induced by LPS and ameliorated the symptoms. We concluded that quercetin significantly improved the pathophysiology in PE and could be developed as candidates for preeclampsia treatment.