Preeclampsia (PE) is a pregnancy-specific syndrome driven by placental dysfunction, and premature placental senescence has increasingly been implicated in its pathogenesis. However, the upstream regulatory mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here, we found that placental SIRT1 expression was reduced in PE and was accompanied by senescence-associated features. In trophoblasts, SIRT1 knockdown enhanced senescence and senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) release, while impairing proliferative capacity, migration, and invasion, whereas pharmacological activation of SIRT1 attenuated placental senescence and ameliorated PE-like manifestations in vivo . Mechanistically, iron chelation alleviated senescence, whereas senolytic intervention partially restored iron homeostasis, supporting a self-reinforcing interaction between iron dyshomeostasis and senescence. Collectively, these findings identify the SIRT1–p53 axis as an upstream regulator linking iron dyshomeostasis to placental senescence, support the existence of a ferro-aging-like pathogenic program in diseased placentas, and provide new insights into the molecular basis of placental dysfunction in PE.
Hu et al. (Wed,) studied this question.