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Objective To assess prenatal ultrasonographic findings and postnatal outcomes in fetuses with intracranial hemorrhage (ICH). Methods This retrospective study included fetuses prenatally diagnosed with ICH between December 2012 and August 2023. Maternal characteristics, prenatal ultrasonographic findings, and postnatal outcomes were reviewed. Results Twenty-seven fetuses with ICH were reviewed. Intracranial hemorrhage was classified as grade 3 and 4 in 24 fetuses. Twenty-two fetuses had ICH, four had ICH with subdural hemorrhage, and one had ICH with subarachnoid hemorrhage. Ventriculomegaly was the most common ultrasonographic finding, and was observed in 22 of the 27 (81.5%) fetuses. Seven fetuses were lost to follow-up, and four intrauterine fetal deaths occurred. The remaining 16 fetuses were delivered at a median gestational age of 35+2 weeks. The infants were followed-up for 40.1 months (range, 4-88). Nine of the 16 infants underwent ventriculoperitoneal placement. One infant underwent brain surgery for severe epilepsy. Motor impairment, including cerebral palsy, was observed in 13 infants (81.2%). Neurologic impairment occurred in six infants (37.5%), developmental delay in nine (56.2%), and epilepsy in 11 (68.7%). Conclusion Fetal ICH is a rare complication diagnosed during pregnancy, which results in subsequent fetal neurological sequelae or death. This study demonstrated that the common ultrasonographic findings in fetal ICH were progressive ventriculomegaly and increased periventricular echogenicity. Fetuses diagnosed with prenatal ICH, especially those affected by higher-grade ICH, may be at an increased risk of long-term neurodevelopmental problems.

Objective The air pollution on pregnancy outcome (APPO) study is a prospective hospital-based cohort study designed to investigate the maternal and fetal effects of a particulate matter with an aerodynamic below 10 μm (PM10) and PM2.5 (below 2.5 μm) exposure. This study aims to analyze a relationship between particulate matter and adverse pregnancy outcomes and to find related biomarkers and develop management guidelines. Methods About 1,200 pregnant women are recruited for 3 years (from January 2021 to December 2023) from seven university hospitals to investigate the effects of particulate matter on pregnancy complications and adverse pregnancy outcomes. We collect biological samples by 5 mL of maternal venous blood and 15 mL of urine in each trimester of pregnancy, and 5 mL of umbilical cord blood and 2×2×2 cm of placental tissue are collected after delivery. In addition, by applying PM10 and PM2.5 concentration values and time-activity patterns from the time weighted average model, the individual predicted exposure of air pollution for the pregnant women are obtained. Results The average exposure of PM10 and PM2.5 of the participants in the entire period of pregnancy, was exceeded the World Health Organization air quality guidelines (an annual level, PM10 >15 μg/m3, PM2.5 >5 μg/m3). Moreover, it was revealed that the PM concentration was increasing toward the 3rd trimester of pregnancy. Conclusion The APPO study will be able to identify the degree of exposure to air pollution in pregnant women and use it as basic data for estimating individual exposure to particulate matter. And the results of the APPO study will facilitate in the development of health management for pregnant women against air pollution.

Abstract Ureaplasma and Prevotella infections are well-known bacteria associated with preterm birth. However, with the development of metagenome sequencing techniques, it has been found that not all Ureaplasma and Prevotella colonizations cause preterm birth. The purpose of this study was to determine the association between Ureaplasma and Prevotella colonization with the induction of preterm birth even in the presence of Lactobacillus. In this matched case–control study, a total of 203 pregnant Korean women were selected and their cervicovaginal fluid samples were collected during mid-pregnancy. The microbiome profiles of the cervicovaginal fluid were analyzed using 16S rRNA gene amplification. Sequencing data were processed using QIIME1.9.1. Statistical analyses were performed using R software, and microbiome analysis was performed using the MicrobiomeAnalyst and Calypso software. A positive correlation between Ureaplasma and other genera was highly related to preterm birth, but interestingly, there was a negative correlation with Lactobacillus and term birth, with the same pattern observed with Prevotella. Ureaplasma and Prevotella colonization with Lactobacillus abundance during pregnancy facilitates term birth, although Ureaplasma and Prevotella are associated with preterm birth. Balanced colonization between Lactobacillus and Ureaplasma and Prevotella is important to prevent preterm birth.

Abstract Background Physiologic changes during pregnancy affect the development of postpartum cerebrovascular disease (CVD) in women with Moyamoya disease. Due to the rare prevalence of Moyamoya disease and its large regional variations, large-scale based studies on the risk of CVD after delivery have not been conducted. This study aimed to evaluate whether women with Moyamoya disease have an increased risk of CVD after delivery. Methods Research data was collected from the National Health Insurance Claims Database of the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service. Patients who delivered in Korea from 2007 to 2014 were enrolled in this study. We classified women as having CVD if they were diagnosed with any of the following conditions between delivery and December 31, 2016; cerebral infarction (I63.X in the International Classification of Diseases-10th Revision [ICD-10]) and/or intracranial hemorrhage (I61.X, I62.X in ICD-10) and/or subarachnoid hemorrhage (I60.X in ICD-10). Women with Moyamoya disease were identified as having I67.5 in ICD-10. We matched the study cohort by the ratio of 1:10 to analyze the risk CVD occurrence. The matching technique applied in this study was based on the variables of age and parity. To evaluate the adjusted hazard ratio (HR) for CVD in women with Moyamoya disease, we used multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression. Results Among a total of 3,611,216 Korean women who underwent delivered, we identified 412 women with Moyamoya disease diagnosis and 1420 age- and parity-matched women without Moyamoya disease (control). Compared to the control group, women with Moyamoya disease had a significantly higher rate of Cesarean section, overt DM, and essential hypertension (all p

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Abstract Preterm birth affects approximately 5% to 7% of live births worldwide and is the leading cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality. Amniotic fluid supernatant (AFS) contains abundant cell-free nucleic acids (cfNAs) that can provide genetic information associated with pregnancy complications. In the current study, cfNAs of AFS in the early second-trimester before the onset of symptoms of preterm birth were analyzed, and we compared gene expression levels between spontaneous preterm birth (n = 5) and term birth (n = 5) groups using sequencing analysis. Differential expression analyses detected 24 genes with increased and 6 genes with decreased expression in the preterm birth group compared to term birth. Upregulated expressions of RDH14, ZNF572, VOPP1, SERPINA12, and TCF15 were validated in an extended AFS sample by quantitative PCR (preterm birth group, n = 21; term birth group, n = 40). Five candidate genes displayed a significant increase in mRNA expression in immortalized trophoblast HTR-8/SVneo cell with H2O2 treatment. Moreover, the expression of five candidate genes was increased to more than twofold by pretreatment with lipopolysaccharide in HTR-8/SVneo cells. Changes in gene expression between preterm birth and term birth is strongly correlated with oxidative stress and infection during pregnancy. Specific expression patterns of genes could be used as potential markers for the early identification of women at risk of having a spontaneous preterm birth.

Particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5) levels are associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes. In this retrospective cohort study, we examined whether the concentration of indoor PM2.5 affected pregnancy outcomes. Additionally, we evaluated biomarkers of pregnancy-related complications caused by fine dust. We collected clinical information and data based on residential addresses from the Air Korea database to assess PM2.5 exposure levels. As a multicenter prospective cohort study, we measured the indoor PM2.5 concentration and inflammatory and oxidative stress markers. The PM2.5 concentration of the low-birth-weight (LBW) delivery group was 27.21 μg/m3, which was significantly higher than that of the normal-birth-weight (NBW) group (26.23 μg/m3) (p = 0.02). When the newborns were divided by sex, the PM2.5 concentration of the LBW group was 27.89 μg/m3 in male infants, which was significantly higher than that of the NBW group (26.26 μg/m3) (p = 0.01). In the prospective study, 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine significantly increased in the high-concentration group (113.55 ng/mL, compared with 92.20 ng/mL in the low-concentration group); in the high-concentration group, the rates of preterm birth (PTB) and small size for gestational age significantly increased (p < 0.01, p = 0.01). This study showed an association between PM2.5, oxidative stress, and fetal growth, with the PTB group being more vulnerable.

An association between the vaginal microbiome and preterm birth has been reported. However, in practice, it is difficult to predict premature birth using the microbiome because the vaginal microbial community varies highly among samples depending on the individual, and the prediction rate is very low. The purpose of this study was to select markers that improve predictive power through machine learning among various vaginal microbiota and develop a prediction algorithm with better predictive power that combines clinical information. As a multicenter case–control study with 150 Korean pregnant women with 54 preterm delivery group and 96 full-term delivery group, cervicovaginal fluid was collected from pregnant women during mid-pregnancy. Their demographic profiles (age, BMI, education level, and PTB history), white blood cell count, and cervical length were recorded, and the microbiome profiles of the cervicovaginal fluid were analyzed. The subjects were randomly divided into a training (n = 101) and a test set (n = 49) in a two-to-one ratio. When training ML models using selected markers, five-fold cross-validation was performed on the training set. A univariate analysis was performed to select markers using seven statistical tests, including the Wilcoxon rank-sum test. Using the selected markers, including Lactobacillus spp., Gardnerella vaginalis, Ureaplasma parvum, Atopobium vaginae, Prevotella timonensis, and Peptoniphilus grossensis, machine learning models (logistic regression, random forest, extreme gradient boosting, support vector machine, and GUIDE) were used to build prediction models. The test area under the curve of the logistic regression model was 0.72 when it was trained with the 17 selected markers. When analyzed by combining white blood cell count and cervical length with the seven vaginal microbiome markers, the random forest model showed the highest test area under the curve of 0.84. The GUIDE, the single tree model, provided a more reasonable biological interpretation, using the 10 selected markers (A. vaginae, G. vaginalis, Lactobacillus crispatus, Lactobacillus fornicalis, Lactobacillus gasseri, Lactobacillus iners, Lactobacillus jensenii, Peptoniphilus grossensis, P. timonensis, and U. parvum), and the covariates produced a tree with a test area under the curve of 0.77. It was confirmed that the association with preterm birth increased when P. timonensis and U. parvum increased (AUC = 0.77), which could also be explained by the fact that as the number of Peptoniphilus lacrimalis increased, the association with preterm birth was high (AUC = 0.77). Our study demonstrates that several candidate bacteria could be used as potential predictors for preterm birth, and that the predictive rate can be increased through a machine learning model employing a combination of cervical length and white blood cell count information.

Nucleic acid sequence classification is a fundamental task in the field of bioinformatics. Due to the increasing amount of unlabeled nucleotide sequences, fast and accurate classification of them on a large scale has become crucial. In this work, we developed NASCUP, a new classification method that captures statistical structures of nucleotide sequences by compact context-tree models and universal probability from information theory. A comprehensive experimental study involving nine public databases for functional non-coding RNA, microbial taxonomy and coding/non-coding RNA classification demonstrates the advantages of NASCUP over widely-used alternatives in efficiency, accuracy, and scalability across all datasets considered. NASCUP achieved BLAST-like classification accuracy consistently for several large-scale databases in orders-of-magnitude reduced runtime, and was applied to other bioinformatics tasks such as outlier detection and synthetic sequence generation.

Abstract Elevation of total cell-free DNA (cfDNA) in patients with preeclampsia is well-known; however, whether this change precedes the onset of symptoms remains inconclusive. Here, we conducted a nested case–control study to determine the elevation of cfDNA levels in women who subsequently developed preeclampsia. Methylated HYP2 (m-HYP2) levels were determined in 68 blood samples collected from women with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, along with 136 control samples, using real-time quantitative PCR. The measured m-HYP2 levels were converted to multiples of the median (MoM) values for correction of maternal characteristics. The m-HYP2 levels and MoM values in patients with preeclampsia were significantly higher than in controls during the third trimester (P

ObjectiveIn this study, we evaluated the prevalence of allergic disease in offsprings delivered via the delivery modes of vaginal delivery vs. planned Cesarean section vs. Cesarean section with labor.MethodsThis study included 175 mother-neonate pairs from Severance Hospital who were enrolled in the Cohort for Childhood Origin of Asthma and allergic diseases study. Information regarding prenatal environmental factors, delivery, and diagnosis of allergic diseases was obtained from a questionnaire and medical record review. Patients with at least 3 years of follow-up data were included in this study. Results were adjusted for sex, birth weight, gestational age at birth, season of birth, neonatal intensive care unit admission, parity, breastfeeding, and maternal factors.ResultsA total of 175 offsprings were eligible for analysis. Among the subjects, 52.0% were delivered by vaginal delivery, 34.3% by planned Cesarean section, and 16.6% by Cesarean section with labor. Fifty-nine offsprings (33.7%) were diagnosed with allergic disease at a median age of 1 year (range 0.5–3 years). The prevalence of allergic disease was not associated with delivery mode after adjusting for confounding variables. Time period from membrane rupture to delivery, duration of the active phase, and the beginning of the pelvic division prior to Cesarean section were not associated with allergic disease development in offsprings.ConclusionCesarean section, irrespective of the occurrence of labor before surgery, did not increase the prevalence of allergic disease in infants up to 3 years of age.

Based on the current understanding of a preventive effect of bilateral salpingectomy on ovarian/fallopian/peritoneal cancers, the Korean Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Korean Society of Gynecologic Endocrinology, Korean Society of Gynecologic Oncology, Korean Society of Maternal Fetal Medicine, and Korean Society for Reproductive Medicine support the following recommendations:• Women scheduled for hysterectomy for benign gynecologic disease should be informed that bilateral salpingectomy reduces the risk of ovarian/fallopian/peritoneal cancer, and they should be counseled regarding this procedure at the time of hysterectomy.• Although salpingectomy is generally considered as a safe procedure in terms of preserving ovarian reserve, there is a lack of evidences representing its long-term outcomes. Therefore, patients should be informed about the minimal potential of this procedure for decreasing ovarian reserve.• Prophylactic salpingectomy during vaginal hysterectomy is favorable in terms of prevention of ovarian/fallopian/peritoneal cancer, although operation-related complications minimally increase with this procedure, compared to the complications associated with vaginal hysterectomy alone. Conversion to open or laparoscopic approach from vaginal approach to perform prophylactic salpingectomy is not recommended.• Women who desire permanent sterilization at the time of cesarean delivery could be counseled for prophylactic salpingectomy before surgery on an individual basis.

Neuroblastoma is the most common pediatric extracranial solid tumor derived from primitive neural crest cells of the sympathetic nervous system. Although one-fifths of all neuroblastomas occurs within the thorax, thoracic neuroblastomas detected in fetus have been rarely reported. We report a case of fetal thoracic neuroblastoma with massive pleural effusion detected with prenatal ultrasonography. A 34-year-old Korean second-gravida was referred to our hospital at 30 weeks of gestation for evaluation, after the right lung mass found in the fetus. Approximately 3 cm, well-defined, hyperechoic mass was found in the right thorax with right pleural effusion, with the initial suspicion of teratoma. However, as mass continued to grow with deteriorating pleural effusion and fetal hydrops, the mass was considered malignant after 3 weeks. After a cesarean delivery, an approximately 4 cm mass with peripheral calcification and hemothorax was found on neonatal ultrasonography. Neuroblastoma was diagnosed on excision biopsy.

In edge computing, scheduling heterogeneous workloads with diverse resource requirements is challenging. Besides limited resources, the servers may be overwhelmed with computational tasks, resulting in lengthy task queues and congestion occasioned by unusual network traffic patterns. Additionally, Internet of Things (IoT)/Edge applications have different characteristics coupled with performance requirements, which become determinants if most edge applications can both satisfy deadlines and each user’s QoS requirements. This study aims to address these restrictions by proposing a mechanism that improves the cluster resource utilization and Quality of Service (QoS) in an edge cloud cluster in terms of service time. Containerization can provide a way to improve the performance of the IoT-Edge cloud by factoring in task dependencies and heterogeneous application resource demands. In this paper, we propose STaSA, a service time aware scheduler for the edge environment. The algorithm automatically assigns requests onto different processing nodes and then schedules their execution under real-time constraints, thus minimizing the number of QoS violations. The effectiveness of our scheduling model is demonstrated through implementation on KubeEdge, a container orchestration platform based on Kubernetes. Experimental results show significantly fewer violations in QoS during scheduling and improved performance compared to the state of the art.

The interactive capacity of a noisy channel is the highest possible rate at which arbitrary interactive protocols can be simulated reliably over the channel. Determining the interactive capacity is notoriously difficult, and the best known lower bounds are far below the associated Shannon capacity, which serves as a trivial (and also generally the best known) upper bound. This paper considers the more restricted setup of simulating finite-state protocols. It is shown that all two-state protocols, as well as rich families of arbitrary finite-state protocols, can be simulated at the Shannon capacity, establishing the interactive capacity for those families of protocols.

Existing caching mechanisms considers content objects individually without considering the semantic correlation among content objects. We argue that this approach can be inefficient in Internet of Things due to the highly redundant nature of IoT device deployments and the data accuracy tolerance of IoT applications. In many IoT applications, an approximate answer is acceptable. Therefore, a cache of an information object having a high semantic correlation with the requested information object can be used instead of a cache of the exact requested information object. In this case, caching both of the information objects can be inefficient and redundant. This paper proposes a caching retrieval scheme which considers the semantic information correlation of information objects of nodes for cache retrieval. We illustrate the benefits of considering the semantic information correlation in caching by studying IoT data caching at the edge. Our experiments and analysis show that semantic correlated caching can significantly improve the efficiency, cache hit, and reduce the resource consumption of IoT devices.

BackgroundSmall-for-gestational age (SGA) infants should be identified before birth because of an increased risk of adverse perinatal outcomes. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of fetal growth rate by gestational age on the prediction of SGA and to identify the optimal time to initiate intensive fetal monitoring to detect SGA in low-risk women. We also sought to determine which the ultrasonographic parameters that contribute substantially to the birthweight determination.MethodsThis was a retrospective study of 442 healthy pregnant women with singleton pregnancies. There were 328 adequate-for-gestational age (AGA) neonates and 114 SGA infants delivered between 37+0 and 41+6 weeks of gestation. We compared the biparietal diameters (BPD), head circumferences (HC), abdominal circumferences (AC), femur lengths (FL), and estimated fetal weights (EFW) obtained on each ultrasound to determine which of these parameters was the best indicator of SGA. We created receiver operating characteristic curves, calculated the areas under the curves (AUCs), and analyzed the data using multivariable logistic regressions to assess the ultrasound screening performances and identify the best predictive factor.ResultsAmong the four ultrasonographic parameters, the AC measurement between 24+0~28+6 weeks achieved a sensitivity of 79.5% and a specificity of 71.7%, with an AUC of 0.806 in the prediction of SGA. AC showed consistently higher AUCs above 0.8 with 64~80% sensitivities as gestational age progressed. EFW measurements from 33+0~35+6 gestational weeks achieved a sensitivity of 60.6% and a specificity of 87.6%, with an AUC of 0.826. In a conditional growth model developed from the linear mixed regression, the value differences between AC and EFW in the SGA and AGA groups became even more pronounced after 33+0~35+6 weeks.ConclusionHealthy low-risk women with a low fetal AC after 24 weeks' gestation need to be monitored carefully for fetal growth to identify SGA infants with a risk for adverse perinatal outcomes.

Based on emerging data and current knowledge regarding high-risk human papillomavirus (hrHPV) testing as a primary screening for cervical cancer, the Korean Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Korean Society of Gynecologic Oncology support the following scientific facts:• Compared to cytology, hrHPV screening has higher sensitivity and detects more cases of high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia.• Qualified hrHPV testing can be considered as an alternative primary screening for cervical cancer to the current cytology method.• The starting age of primary hrHPV screening should not be before 25 years because of possible overtreatment in this age, which has a high human papillomavirus (HPV) prevalence but rarely progresses to cancer. The screening interval should be no sooner than every 3 years and no longer than every 5 years.• Before the introduction of hrHPV screening in Korea, research into comparative effectiveness of primary hrHPV screening for cervical cancer should be conducted to determine the appropriate HPV assay, starting age, and screening interval.

This work presents a surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and density functional theory (DFT) study of a fipronil adsorbed on colloidal silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). A standard curve was established to quantify fipronil within a range of 0.0001–0.1 ppm (r2 ≥ 0.985), relying on the unique fipronil Raman shift at ~2236 cm−1 adsorbed on AgNPs. DFT calculations suggest that the nitrile moiety (C≡N) binding should be slightly more favorable, by 1.92 kcal/mol, than those of the nitrogen atom of the pyrazole in fipronil and Ag6 atom clusters. The characteristic peaks of the SERS spectrum were identified, and both the calculated vibrational wavenumbers and the Raman intensity pattern were considered. The vibrational spectra of fipronil were obtained from the potential energy distribution (PED) analysis and selective Raman band enhancement.

A new attack algorithm is proposed for a secure key generation and management method introduced by Yang and Wu. It was previously claimed that the key generation method of Yang and Wu using a keystore seed was information-theoretically secure and could solve the long-term key storage problem in cloud systems, thanks to the huge number of secure keys that the keystone seed can generate. Their key generation method, however, is considered to be broken if an attacker can recover the keystore seed. The proposed attack algorithm in this paper reconstructs the keystore seed of the Yang⁻Wu key generation method from a small number of collected keys. For example, when t = 5 and l = 2 7 , it was previously claimed that more than 2 53 secure keys could be generated, but the proposed attack algorithm can reconstruct the keystone seed based on only 84 collected keys. Hence, the Yang⁻Wu key generation method is not information-theoretically secure when the attacker can gather multiple keys and a critical amount of information about the keystone seed is leaked.

BACKGROUND:Histological chorioamnionitis (HCA) is related to perinatal morbidity. However, there is no definite diagnostic method for detecting chorioamnionitis before delivery. METHODS:We evaluated whether the delta neutrophil index (DNI) was an effective early marker of HCA in patients with preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM). We retrospectively evaluated 149 women diagnosed with PPROM (gestational age, 20+0 to 36+6 weeks) at Severance Hospital from January 2013 to December 2014. The women were categorized into the following two groups: (a) PPROM without HCA and (b) PPROM with HCA. The maternal white blood cell (WBC) count, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), C-reactive protein (CRP) level, and DNI were measured at admission. The DNI has been reported to reflect the fraction of circulating immature granulocytes associated with infection. RESULTS:Of the 149 patients, 87 were included in the PPROM without HCA group and 62 were included in the PPROM with HCA group. The interval between admission and delivery was significantly shorter in the PPROM with HCA group than in the PPROM without HCA group. There was no significant difference in the maternal WBC count. The serum CRP level, NLR, and DNI were significantly lower in the PPROM without HCA group than in the PPROM with HCA group, while the lymphocyte count was significantly lower in the PPROM with HCA group than in the PPROM without HCA group. A predictive equation was generated by combining the DNI, lymphocyte count, and CRP level, and the sensitivity and specificity for predicting a placental inflammatory response were 69.1% and 70.5%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS:The DNI could be a predictive marker for HCA in patients with PPROM. Our predictive equation involving the DNI, lymphocyte count, and CRP level may be helpful for predicting the placental inflammatory response in patients with PPROM.

This paper examines the optimal policy for trade negotiation in the current multilateral and preferential trade regime. Using a four country oligopoly model with asymmetric technology, we examine the implication of preferential trade agreement on tariff and welfare. We find any preferential trade agreement has a tariff complementarity effect. Social welfare of the more efficient country is also higher with more cooperative trade negotiation regime. However, for technically inefficient country, the cooperative trade policy does not always guarantee to improve the social welfare when the technology difference is large or the global free trade is not feasible. Under large technology difference, we show that South-South FTAs is an optimal alternative policy for the inefficient countries and is more sustainable.

This paper examines the welfare effects of foreign direct investment, focusing on the asymmetric technological transfers and innovation efforts among different entry modes of FDI, such as greenfield FDI and cross-border M&A. Traditionally, greenfield FDI has been preferred by developing host countries, while recent research shows that cross-border M&A also has strong welfare-improving effects. We demonstrate that country asymmetries in terms of technologies and market sizes among integrating countries explains why greenfield investments are preferred to cross-border acquisitions in most developing economies: mainly because of asymmetric technology transfer effects. More specifically, when the host country has comparative advantage in production factor cost and in market size, greenfield FDI is the optimal investment regime, while cross-border M&A might be the optimal policy in the adverse case, as widely observed in recent FDI features in developing economies.

Preeclampsia is a common disease that can occur during human pregnancy and is a leading cause of both maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality. Inadequate trophoblast invasion and deficient remodeling of uterine spiral arteries are associated with preeclampsia (PE). The development of this syndrome is thought to be related to multiple factors. Recently, we isolated patient-specific human amniotic epithelial cells (AECs) from the placentas of 3 women with normal pregnancy and 3 with preeclamptic pregnancy. Since the characteristics of human AECs in PE are different from those in normal pregnancy, we sought to confirm the genes differentially expressed between preeclamptic pregnancy and normal pregnancy. Therefore, we performed transcriptome analysis to investigate the candidate genes associated with the possible pathophysiology of preeclampsia. Pathway analysis was performed using the Database for Annotation, Visualization, and Integrated Discovery (DAVID) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) online resource. In this study, we selected a total of 12 pathways and focused on extracellular matrix-related and biological adhesion molecules. Using RT-PCR array and real-time PCR, we confirmed that COL16A1, ITGB2, and LAMA3 were significantly up-regulated, but ITGA1, ITGA3, ITGA6, MMP1, MMP3, MMP10 and MMP11 were significantly down-regulated in preeclamptic fetal origin cells. Taken together, we suggest that the genes and pathways identified here may be responsible for the occurrence and development of PE, and controlling their expression may play a role in communication with fetal-maternal placenta to keep normal pregnancy.