Research Article

Increased Umbilical Cord PAI-1 Levels in Placental Insufficiency Are Associated with Fetal Hypoxia and Angiogenesis

Figure 4

Umbilical artery plasma from PI pregnancies has increased angiogenic potency. Angiogenic tube formation assay of HUVECs plated onto extracellular matrix protein gel in the presence of 1% venous umbilical cord plasma from PI and control. Assays were individually performed on PI () and control () samples in duplicate experiments. Each sample was gestational age matched within 5 days. (a) Representative fields are shown from serum-free control (SF), control pregnancy plasma, and PI plasma. (b) Quantification was using the standard method of calculating total tube length of all cord formation, and the total number of branches per field. Results were determined by averaging across four fields per well, with triplicate wells per experiment (one-way ANOVA, , and ). Standard error of the mean is indicated.
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