Preeclampsia is a multi-factorial disorder that affects 2-8% of women worldwide (Khan at al. 2006), and leading cause of maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity. The disease is characterized by oxidative stress, elevated inflammatory response, and generalized endothelial cell dysfunction. While defective placentation is generally described as being at the root of the disease, its pathogenesis is not fully understood.

Here we performed direct integration of two independent microarray datasets: third-trimester placental samples obtained after cesarean sections from preeclamptic women (n = 25) and women with uncomplicated pregnancies (n = 23) and ones from gestational age matched first-trimester pregnancies with normal uterine artery Doppler resistance indexes (n = 11).