Placental expression of a novel primate‐specific splice variant of sFlt‐1 is upregulated in pregnancies complicated by severe early onset pre‐eclampsia

Please cite this paper as: Whitehead C, Palmer K, Nilsson U, Gao Y, Saglam B, Lappas M, Tong S. Placental expression of a novel primate‐specific splice variant of sFlt‐1 is upregulated in pregnancies complicated by severe early onset pre‐eclampsia. BJOG 2011; DOI: 10.1111/j.1471‐0528.2011.02962.x. sFlt‐1 is increased in the placenta and serum of women with pre‐eclampsia. A novel primate‐specific splice variant has recently been discovered, but its expression in severe pre‐eclampsia has yet to be reported. We investigated placental expression of the previously described variant, sFlt‐1/sFlt‐i13, and the novel variant, sFlt‐e15a, in pregnancies complicated by severe early onset pre‐eclampsia (n = 14) and HELLP (haemolysis, elevated liver enzymes and a low platelet count) syndrome (n = 8). There was significant upregulation of both variants in pre‐eclampsia and HELLP syndrome compared with normotensive term (n = 35) and preterm controls (n = 8). We conclude that the novel primate‐specific splice variant of sFlt‐1 is highly expressed in both severe pre‐eclampsia and HELLP.