Poster #049
Step-wise differentiation of preeclamptic iPSCs to trop
PI: Kathleen Fisch, PhD, Lab Mentor: Hector Chavez, B.S.
Preeclampsia is a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy characterized by new onset of hypertension after 20 weeks of gestation. Preeclampsia is the most common cause of maternal death globally, causing around 76,000 maternal deaths and over 500k fetal deaths annually. Confined placental mosaicism, genetic abnormalities confined to the placenta, is associated with increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes such as intrauterine growth restriction and preeclampsia. It is hypothesized that impaired spiral artery remodeling by the placenta’s extravillous trophoblast (EVTs) can lead to the development of preeclampsia. However, there’s a lack of in-vitro models that capture how aberrant cytogenetics impacts preeclampsia. We differentiated patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from preeclamptic and normotensive pregnancies into trophoblast stem cells (TSCs), the progenitor stem cells of EVTs. These TSCs recapitulated the cytogenetic features of the preeclampsia phenotype. This model enables investigation of how cytogenetic alterations impact the function of preeclamptic trophoblast cells.