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Introduction
Preeclampsia (PE) is a common complication during pregnancy, which is characterized by hypertension, high urea protein and abnormalities in other systems (1). PE is a key cause of fatality of pregnant women and perinatal fetuses. It has been demonstrated that PE is associated with immunity, uterus-placental ischemia, endothelin and nitrogen oxide (NO) dysfunction (2); however, the precise etiology of PE remains to be determined. Recent studies demonstrated that PE development is accompanied with reduced placental infusion due to extensive damage in the endothelium, which is predominantly caused by oxidative stress and inflammation (3,4). Moreover, ischemia can induce the production of free radicals and decrease the activity of antioxidative proteins, resulting in damage to the endothelium (5,6). It is well-known that inflammation can cause immune imbalance, endothelial damage, cytokine production, activation of neutrophils and local oxidative stress in the placenta, eventually inducing PE (6,7).
Currently it is difficult to prevent the early stages of PE, clinical treatments predominantly focus on relieving the symptoms, such as reducing blood pressure and seizures, and supplying albumin (8). However, the therapeutic effects of these treatments are not satisfactory and over supplementation of albumin can put a strain on the kidney. Thus, development of novel therapeutic agents to treat PE is required. Harma et al (9) reported that supplementation of antioxidants can reduce the incidence of PE by 2/3 in high-risk pregnant women, which provides direction for PE treatment. Raijmakers et al (10) observed that the combination of vitamins C and E is a promising prophylactic strategy for prevention of preeclampsia.
Astaxanthin, 3,3′-dihydroxy-β-carotene-4,4′-dione, is extensively present in aquatic biology. The major feature of astaxanthin is its antioxidative activity is 100–550 times stronger than that of vitamin E. The biological activities of astaxanthin include clearing cellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), reducing oxidative stress, inflammation and blood pressure, and increasing NO utilization (11–14). Thus, according to the biological activities of astaxanthin, it was predicted that astaxanthin may effectively reduce PE. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate the effect of astaxanthin on the antioxidative activity of endothelial cells, and assess the therapeutic effects of astaxanthin on rats with Nω-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME)-induced preeclampsia.
Materials and methods
Cell lines and cell culture
Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) were obtained from China Center...