Glycogen phosphorylase is a key enzyme in glycogenolysis.

• Released with myocardial ischemia, blood concentration of glycogen phosphorylase isoenzyme BB (GPBB) is a marker of acute coronary syndromes.

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• Pregnancy imposes metabolic stress, and preeclampsia is associated with cardiac complications.
• However, plasma GPBB concentration during pregnancy is unknown.

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• This study was conducted to determine maternal plasma GPBB concentration in normal pregnancy and in preeclampsia.

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• Plasma samples from 6 groups (n=396) were studied: nonpregnant and pregnant women with normal term delivery, term and preterm preeclampsia, and term and preterm small-for-gestational-age neonates.

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• GPBB concentration was measured with a specific immunoassay.

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• Placental tissues (n=45) obtained from pregnant women with preterm and term preeclampsia, spontaneous preterm delivery, and normal term delivery were analyzed for potential GPBB expression by immunoblotting.

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• Median plasma GPBB concentration was higher in pregnant women than in nonpregnant women (38.7 versus 9.2 ng/mL; P<0.001), which remained significant after adjusting for age, race, and parity.

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• Maternal plasma GPBB concentrations did not change throughout gestation.

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• Cases of preterm (but not term) preeclampsia had higher median plasma GPBB concentrations than gestational age-matched normal pregnancy cases (72.6 versus 26.0 ng/mL; P=0.001).

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• Small-for-gestational-age neonates did not affect plasma GPBB concentration. GPBB was detected in the placenta and was less abundant in preterm preeclampsia than in preterm delivery cases (P<0.01).

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• There is physiological elevation of plasma GPBB concentration during pregnancy; an increase in maternal plasma GPBB is a novel phenotype of preterm preeclampsia.
• It is strongly suggested that these changes are attributed to GPBB of placental origin.

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Key Words:

• small-for-gestational-age neonate
• labor
• hypoxia
• placenta

© 2012 American Heart Association, Inc

Hypertension. 2012; 59: 274-282

1. JoonHo Lee,
2. Roberto Romero,
3. Zhong Dong,
4. Deug-Chan Lee,
5. Yi Dong,
6. Pooja Mittal,
7. Tinnakorn Chaiworapongsa,
8. Sonia S. Hassan,
9. Chong Jai Kim

+ Author Affiliations

1. From the Perinatology Research Branch (J.L., R.R., D.-C.L., Y.D., P.M., T.C., S.S.H., C.J.K.), Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development/National Institutes of Health/US Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD and Detroit, MI; Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology (R.R., P.M., T.C., S.S.H.), Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics (R.R.), and Department of Pathology (C.J.K.), University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.

Correspondence to Chong Jai Kim, Department of Pathology, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Asan Medical Center, 88, Olympic-ro 43-gil, Songpa-gu, Seoul 138-736, Korea (E-mail ckim@amc.seoul.kr);

or Roberto Romero, Perinatology Research Branch, NICHD, NIH, DHHS, Wayne State University, Hutzel Women's Hospital, 3990 John R St, Detroit, MI 48201 (E-mail prbchiefstaff@med.wayne.edu).