Sample collection

A total of 40 pregnant women (20 cases with PE patients and 20 normal pregnant women) from the Maternity and Child Health Care Affiliated Hospital, Jiaxing University were recruited for this study (Table 1). All pregnant women were strictly screened according to the clinical features of PE cases to exclude other causes (Wisner, 2019). The whole blood samples (3.0 ml) were collected from the PE patients and normal pregnant women, and leukocyte cells were isolated from the collected whole blood using the Red Blood Cell Lysis Buffer kit (Tiangen, Beijing, China). The cells were transferred into Eppendorf tubes with TRIzol reagent (Invitrogen Carlsbad, CA, USA). Total RNA was quantified with a NanoDrop ND 2000 spectrophotometer and RNA integrity was assessed using an Agilent Bioanalyzer 2100 (Agilent Technologies Santa Clara, CA, USA).

Notes.

The two groups were matched by age and gestational week. ns, P > 0.05 and ***, P < 0.01.