Fig. 2

Suppressyn protein expression dynamics in trophoblast tissue from preeclampsia and control pregnancies (western blot analysis). Changes in suppressyn (SUPYN) protein expression were assessed in placental trophoblast tissues from preeclampsia (PE) patients and matched controls from 29 to 37 weeks of gestation. (a) Changes in suppressyn protein expression were examined in placental trophoblast tissues from PE patients (29–37 weeks), including those with early-onset PE [EO-PE; 29–33 weeks] and late-onset PE [LO-PE; 34–37 weeks], as well as gestational age-matched controls. Due to differences among blotting intensities in control and PE samples, and across gestational weeks (indicated by the dashed lines), direct comparison of band intensity is not possible. The original blot data are shown in Supplementary Figure S1. (b) Suppressyn protein expression levels were compared between control and PE samples, with further sub-grouping based on the presence of fetal growth restriction (FGR) in EO-PE and LO-PE samples. Quantitative analysis of the data was conducted using the blots presented in Supplementary Figure S2, with original blot results shown in Supplementary Figure S3. (c) Both intracellular and secretory forms (indicated by the triangle) of suppressyn protein were present in placental trophoblast tissues. The proportion of secretory forms suppressyn in total suppressyn was calculated for each subgroup, categorized by the presence or absence of FGR (EO-PE-FGR(-), EO-PE-FGR(+), LO-PE-FGR(-), LO-PE-FGR(+)). Quantitative analysis was performed using the blots shown in Supplementary Figure S1. Box plots display the median (horizontal center line), interquartile range (box), mean values (×) and minimum/maximum values (whiskers). The numbers in parentheses indicate the sample sizes used for each group. Statistical significance was assessed using Mann-Whitney U tests. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; n.s., not significant.