In an IN DEPTH contribution in Science Nadia Whitehead describes a Science Translational Medicine article (DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3008808) where a team around the doctors Burimshi analyzed urine from 600 pregnant women using the dye Congo red which stains only “bunched”, not properly folded proteins. Those women with a risk of preeclampsia had bunched proteins with a frequency of more than 80 % while healthy women had none. Among the five proteins mostly bunched were immunoglobulin light chains, ceruloplasmin, SERPINA1, albumin and (sic!) Alsheimer’s β-amyloid. The authors conclude that preeclampsia might also be a disease of protein misfolding.

Aside from a new way to look at the disease which affects about 10 % of birth worldwide this paper offers a cheap test for preeclampsia. Remarcable!