Placentation defects in early pregnancy may result in inadequate trophoblast differentiation followed by subsequent impairment of villous maturation and villous trophoblast turnover.[7] The dysregulation of villous trophoblast during preeclampsia can be followed using placental protein 13 (PP13, LGALS13) as a placenta-specific marker released into maternal blood. This evidence concerns the gene LGALS13 and preeclampsia.