Why do we need this research?
Pre-eclampsia can be dangerous for both mother and baby, and is the cause of around 1 in 8 stillbirths in the UK. A woman or birthing person with pre-eclampsia develops high blood pressure – or hypertension – in pregnancy and has protein in their urine. Pre-eclampsia can only be cured completely by delivering the baby and the placenta. This means that some babies have to be born prematurely, putting them at risk of both short-term complications and lifelong disability.
We think that pre-eclampsia happens when the blood vessels that supply the placenta do not develop properly. This means that the placenta cannot get enough oxygen and nutrients, causing problems for the baby and making the pregnant woman or person’s arteries behave abnormally, leading to high blood pressure. Finding new treatments that improve blood pressure control in pregnancy is therefore vital to prevent women and birthing people with pre-eclampsia from becoming seriously unwell. This could potentially allow pregnancies to continue for longer and reduce the number of babies dying before or shortly after birth.
What’s happening in this project?
Blood pressure is controlled by the contraction and relaxation of small blood vessels in the body. This process is coordinated by a series of ion channels – proteins that are embedded into the walls of cells, forming a passageway for things to move in and out. Our researchers think that one particular ion channel, called a BKCa channel, helps to relax blood vessels in pregnant women and people, including those with pre-eclampsia.
Our researchers have been working in the lab to find out if two naturally occurring molecules – magnolol and HBD-2 – can open the BKCa channel and relax blood vessels in pregnant women. To do this, the team took blood vessels from pregnant women without pre-eclampsia at the time of caesarean section and treated them with magnolol or HBD-2. While magnolol did not appear to help, the team showed that HBD-2 did relax the blood vessels. The team next want to assess whether HBD-2 can relax blood vessels from pregnant women with pre-eclampsia, before testing whether this treatment can safely reduce blood pressure in pregnant mice.
What difference will this project make?
This project will show us whether drugs that act on the BKCa channel could be effective, safe treatments for pre-eclampsia. If the work is successful, the next step would be to carry out a clinical trial in people with pre-eclampsia. This could lead to the development of urgently needed treatments that can improve outcomes for both mother and baby and reduce the risk of stillbirth.
