Enhanced Prevalence of Plasmatic Soluble MHC Class I Chain-Related Molecule in Vascular Pregnancy Diseases
Figure 2
Differential effect of plasma isolated from sMIC-positive VPD patients or term-matched sMIC-negative plasma of women undergoing normal pregnancy (NP) on percentage (Figure 2(a)) and mean fluorescence intensity (mfi, Figure 2(b)) of NK cell surface NKG2D expression within PBMC. For each experiment, PBMC isolated from healthy nonpregnant control donors (NP) was cultured for 48 hours before flow cytometry analysis in media containing either 20% sMIC-positive plasma from women experiencing vascular pregnancy diseases (black) or 20% sMIC-negative plasma from normal pregnancies (NP, gray). Gestational age at plasma sampling of VPD cases was matched to that of NP plasma used as control in 8 independent experiments. Plasma-induced modifications of NKG2D cell surface expression are illustrated as variation in the % of NKG2D positive CD3−CD56+ NK cells found within PBMC (a) and mean fluorescence intensity of NKG2D staining in NKG2D positive CD3−CD56+ NK cells (b). (c) Flow cytometry plots illustrate detection of NK cells and gating of NKG2D expression within CD3−CD56+ NK cells in 3 representative experiments. Overlay of NKG2D downregulation resulting from incubation of NK cells with sMIC-positive VPD plasma (black) versus sMIC-negative plasma from control normal undergoing pregnancies (NP Figure 2(c), right panel). Wilcoxon matched pairs tests were used to compare the two groups.
