Early growth response protein-1 coordinates lipotoxicity-associated placental inflammation: Role in Maternal Obesity

Maternal obesity during pregnancy leads to a pro-inflammatory milieu in the placenta. We conducted a global transcriptomic profiling in BeWo cells following palmitic acid (PA, 500 uM) and/or TNF-alpha (10 ng/ml) treatment for 24 h. Microarray analysis revealed that placental cytotrophoblasts increased expression of genes related to inflammation, stress response and immediate-early factors in response to plamitic acid, TNF-alpha or a combination of both. Our results suggest that fatty acids and inflammatory cytokines induce inflammation in placental cells via activation of JNK-Egr-1 signaling.

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Saben J, Zhong Y, Gomez-Acevedo H, Thakali KM, Borengasser SJ, Andres A, Shankar K