A Novel Method to Identify Syncytiotrophoblast-Derived RNA Products Representative of Trisomy 21 Placental RNA in Maternal Plasma

Abstract

A novel in vitro method is described wherein gene expression profiling is reflective and informative for the way how syncytiotrophoblast cells shed RNA products in vivo in maternal plasma. After controlled denudation, RNA is obtained selectively from the syncytiotrophoblast cells of trisomy 21 placentae. cDNA copies are subsequently analyzed by microarray profiling and cDNA cloning with sequencing. Given the preponderance of 5' mRNA fragments lacking a poly-A tail, the placental RNA products are amplified after polymerase A-mediated tailing by using a method originally designed for small-sized microRNAs. This approach, when combined with cDNA library or microarray expression screening, is a novel in vitro method to screen for syncytiotrophoblast-derived RNA products representative of trisomy 21 placental RNA as present in vivo in maternal plasma.

MicroRNAs and Ethanol Toxicity

“…Early research showed that plasma miRNAs could mark the presence of fetal trisomy (Go et al, 2008) or serve as a marker for cancer (Mitchell et al, 2008), neurological diseases (Go et al, 2008;Redell, Moore, Ward, Hergenroeder, & Dash, 2010;Siegel, Mackenzie, Chaplin, Jablonski, & Griffiths, 2012), 10 and even alcoholic liver damage and fetal alcohol exposure (Balaraman et al, 2014). The proliferation of studies 11 profiling the expression of circulating miRNAs strongly supports the hypothesis that circulating miRNAs are biomarkers for disease and advances an additional hypothesis that perhaps, this class of endocrine factors is a participant in disease processes.…”

Plasma miRNA Profiles in Pregnant Women Predict Infant Outcomes following Prenatal Alcohol Exposure

“…In 2008, evidence emerged that miRNAs were secreted into plasma [33] and could be used to diagnose disease [34, 35]. Many organs are predicted to secrete miRNAs into circulation [36], however, during pregnancy fetal tissues like the placenta are an additional source of miRNAs in maternal circulation [37].…”

Estimation of Detection Rates of Aneuploidy in High-Risk Pregnancy Using an Approach Based on Nuchal Translucency and Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing: A Cohort Study

“…NIPT for aneuploidy using cell-free DNA in maternal plasma is increasingly used in clinical practice [6,7]. Several studies have reported promising results and some have also included sex chromosome aneuploidy analysis [4,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29]. Some have reported correct detection of all trisomy 21 fetuses and 98% of trisomy 18 cases, with all euploid fetuses correctly identified and a very low (1%) assay failure rate [8,10].…”