Protein expression of neutrophil elastase in decidual tissue in term not-in-labor (TNL), term labor (TL), and preterm labor (PTL) women. A, Representative Western blots. B, Fold-change in Western blot density normalized to TNL. Protein expression of neutrophil elastase was significantly increased in TL (n = 6) as compared to TNL (n = 6) but was not further increased in PTL (n = 6). Two bands were present for neutrophil elastase, most likely due to posttranslational glycosylation. *P < .05 as compared to TNL.