Ongoing noninvasive monitoring of the placenta throughout pregnancy can help reduce adverse outcomes. Monitoring allows for early diagnosis and personalized treatment of serious placental diseases, including fetal growth restriction, stillbirth, and preeclampsia. A team of scientists funded by NICHD through the Human Placenta Project (HPP) is using RNA that the placenta sheds into the bloodstream as the basis for affordable and portable diagnostic tools for detecting placental abnormalities before physical symptoms appear.
Hand-Held Diagnostics
Placental cells release small pieces of RNA that circulate in the pregnant person’s blood. This extracellular RNA can provide information on the health status of the placenta. A team of researchers led by Zev Williams, M.D., Ph.D., has developed a low-cost, high-throughput method for extracting circulating extracellular RNA. The team is working on validating the use of their innovative, hand-held sequencing technology to analyze placental RNA they extract from blood in real time.
Mapping the Placenta
In an earlier study, the team created the first atlas of the placenta, using single-cell sequencing to identify the types of cells that make up the organ and their locations within it, and continued to gather this information throughout gestation. The researchers can now combine the data from each of these sources to monitor placental development and overall health beginning in the first trimester.
Overcoming Obstacles
This team has been working to overcome challenges that have prevented circulating RNA from serving as informative biomarkers of placental health. The researchers are now on the verge of having a system that is affordable, portable, and accurate enough to be useful in clinics everywhere. The team even used the technology they developed for placenta monitoring to create a rapid COVID-19 test.
Learn more about the team
Principal Investigator(s):
Learn more about the HPP-funded project:
Nanopore-based sequencing of placenta-cell-type-specific extracellular RNA for real time assessment of human placenta development and function
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