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

Figure 6

PAI-1 neutralization results in angiogenic suppression. HUVEC angiogenic tube formation assay on extracellular matrix in the presence of 1% venous umbilical cord plasma from PI pregnancies. PAI-1 neutralizing antibody was added in indicated amounts (μg/mL) as well as plasma-free, and anti-GAPDH antibody negative controls and the total tube length and branching quantified following incubations. (a) Representative 100x magnified fields are shown. (b) Significant differences from the plasma + treatment were determined by one-way ANOVA. PAI-1 inhibition attenuated angiogenic simulation measured by both total tube length and branching. (c) Experiments were repeated with six fetal umbilical cord plasma samples from pregnancies with PI, using 1 μg/mL of PAI-1 inhibiting antibody. Standard error of the mean is indicated (one-way ANOVA) ( and ).

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