Background/aim: Preeclampsia is a leading cause of maternal death in the developing world. Our aim was to quantify and compare messenger (mRNA) expression of nuclear factor-kappa beta (NF-?β) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) in control patients with preeclampsia and without preeclampsia with or without familial hereditary background. Materials and methods: Four groups of patients were formed depending on the presence or absence of preeclampsia and presence or absence of familial history for preeclampsia. NF-?β and SOD were measured in human placentas by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction. The 2-ΔΔct analysis method was used to measure the difference in the relative expression of the target genes in each group of patients. Results: In NF-?β expression, there was an increase of 23.35% in the group of women with preeclampsia versus women with preeclampsia without familial history. Regarding SOD, there was a reduction of about 33.33% in the expression in women with preeclampsia with familial history versus women with preeclampsia without familial history. Conclusion: Familial presence of preeclampsia could predispose to altered expression in SOD and NF-?β.