Preeclampsia/Eclampsia candidate genes show altered methylation in maternal leukocytes of preeclamptic women at the time of delivery.

<bold>Objective: </bold>To analyze methylation profiles of known preeclampsia/eclampsia (PE) candidate genes in normal (NL) and preeclamptic (PE) women at delivery.<bold>Methods: </bold>A matched case-control study comparing methylation in 79 CpG sites/33 genes from an independent gene set in maternal leukocyte DNA in PE and NL (n = 14 each) on an Illumina BeadChip platform. Replication performed on second cohort (PE = 12; NL = 32).<bold>Results: </bold>PE demonstrates differential methylation in POMC, AGT, CALCA, and DDAH1 compared with NL.<bold>Conclusion: </bold>Differential methylation in four genes associated with PE may represent a potential biomarker or an epigenetic pathophysiologic mechanism altering gene transcription. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]