Maternal anemia results in increased proliferation in human placental villi

Abstract

Summary Maternal anemia results in hypoxic conditions of the feto-placental unit and thus is a suitable model to study the effects of hypoxia on villous proliferation in human placentae. Preliminary experiments revealed considerable discrepancies between the results gained with several proliferation markers and between our findings and the literature. Thus, in a pilot series we performed double labeling experiments with 3H-TdR autoradiography combined with the immunohistochemical proliferation markers MIB 1 and PCNA (clones PC 10, 19A2, and 19F4). This pilot series revealed MIB 1 to be the most reliable immunohistochemical proliferation marker for paraffin-embedded human placental tissues. In a second series, we investigated 12 placentae from first trimester (8 to 10 weeks gestation) and 12 placentae from third trimester (34 to 40 weeks of gestation) using MIB 1 as immunohistochemical proliferation marker. Maternal anemia was divided into two groups, severe (Hb