Project description:Miscarriage occurs in 15-20% of clinical pregnancies. While chromosomal errors are observed in over 50%, causes of karyotypically normal losses are poorly understood. DNA methylation undergoes reprogramming during development and must be appropriately set to maintain a healthy pregnancy. We hypothesize that aberrant DNA methylation may cause karyotypically normal miscarriage, particularly among women experiencing recurrent miscarriage (RM). DNA methylation in first trimester chorionic villi was assessed in chromosomally normal miscarriages from women with RM (N=33) or isolated miscarriage (M, N=21), and elective terminations (TA, N=16). Differentially methylated candidate loci were identified using the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation27 BeadChip array by comparing 10 RM to 10 TA samples. Follow up showed a significant increase in methylation in RM and M compared to TA placentae at the CYP1A2 (p=0.002) and AXL (p=0.02) promoters and decrease at the DEFB1 (p=0.008) promoter. Gene function analysis showed an enrichment of imprinted genes (p=9.53E-10) and genes previously associated with RM (p=9.51E-06). DNA methylation was evaluated at 7 imprinted loci using bisulfite pyrosequencing. An increase of outliers at these loci was observed in RM (3.9%) compared to M (0%) and TA (0.9%) (p=0.02), with increased average methylation at the H19/IGF2 ICR1 in M samples (p<0.0001). Altered DNA methylation in the placenta at specific loci, as well as global dysregulation in specific cases, may contribute to or be a consequence of placental insufficiency in karyotypically normal miscarriage. First-trimester placental villi samples from karyotypically normal miscarriages from recurrent miscarriage patients (N, N=10) and chromosomally normal elective terminations (PZET, N=10).
Project description:Genome wide DNA methylation profiling of chorionic villi and decidua from recurrent miscarriage patients and artificial abortion controls. Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip was used.
Project description:Miscarriage occurs in 15-20% of clinical pregnancies. While chromosomal errors are observed in over 50%, causes of karyotypically normal losses are poorly understood. DNA methylation undergoes reprogramming during development and must be appropriately set to maintain a healthy pregnancy. We hypothesize that aberrant DNA methylation may cause karyotypically normal miscarriage, particularly among women experiencing recurrent miscarriage (RM). DNA methylation in first trimester chorionic villi was assessed in chromosomally normal miscarriages from women with RM (N=33) or isolated miscarriage (M, N=21), and elective terminations (TA, N=16). Differentially methylated candidate loci were identified using the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation27 BeadChip array by comparing 10 RM to 10 TA samples. Follow up showed a significant increase in methylation in RM and M compared to TA placentae at the CYP1A2 (p=0.002) and AXL (p=0.02) promoters and decrease at the DEFB1 (p=0.008) promoter. Gene function analysis showed an enrichment of imprinted genes (p=9.53E-10) and genes previously associated with RM (p=9.51E-06). DNA methylation was evaluated at 7 imprinted loci using bisulfite pyrosequencing. An increase of outliers at these loci was observed in RM (3.9%) compared to M (0%) and TA (0.9%) (p=0.02), with increased average methylation at the H19/IGF2 ICR1 in M samples (p<0.0001). Altered DNA methylation in the placenta at specific loci, as well as global dysregulation in specific cases, may contribute to or be a consequence of placental insufficiency in karyotypically normal miscarriage.
Project description:We profiled the transcriptomes of about 110000 single cells from 16 human first-trimester decidual and villi samples from 5 normal samples and 3 recurrent miscarriage (RM) samples. Each decidual and villi samples was collected from the same patient. The cellular composition revealed five major subsets of immune cells including NK, T cell, macrophage, monocytes and B cell in the maternal fetal interface. We used the marker gene of macrophages to establish the diagnosis and treatment model of unexplained recurrent abortion, in order to explore the relationship between immune cells and unexplained recurrent abortion.
Project description:YY1 is a sequence-specific DNA-binding transcription factor that has many important biological roles. However, its function in trophoblasts at the maternal-foetal interface remains to be elucidated. In this study, we used an mRNA microarray and quantitative reverse transcription-PCR and compared the YY1 mRNA expression level in trophoblasts between patients with recurrent miscarriage (RM) and healthy control subjects. Our results revealed that YY1 mRNA expression was significantly lower in the trophoblasts of the RM group compared with the healthy control group. Furthermore, immunofluorescence and immunohistochemical data showed that YY1 was highly expressed in human placental villi during early pregnancy, especially in cytotrophoblast cells and invasive extravillous trophoblasts, and it was expressed at a much lower level in the placental villi of term pregnancy. YY1 overexpression enhanced the invasion and proliferation of trophoblasts, while knockdown of YY1 repressed these effects. Antibody array screening revealed that YY1 significantly promoted MMP2 expression in trophoblasts. Bioinformatics analysis identified three YY1-binding sites in the MMP2 promoter region, and chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis verified that YY1 binds directly to its promoter region. Importantly, inhibition of YY1 by siRNA clearly decreased trophoblast invasion in an ex vivo explant culture model. Overall, our findings revealed a new regulatory pathway of YY1/MMP2 in trophoblast cells invasion during early pregnancy, and indicated that YY1 may be involved in the pathogenesis of RM. Total RNA was isolated using Trizol from trophoblast cells from three healthy controls (HC) and three recurrent miscarriage (RM) patients. Total RNA were extracted and used for hybridizing Affymetrix chips (GeneChip® Human Transcriptome Array 2.0(HTA2.0)). Data were normalised by gcRMA method and raw p-values adjusted by Bonferroni procedure (1%).
Project description:Recurrent miscarriage (RM) is the occurrence of repeated pregnancies that end in miscarriage of the fetus before 20 weeks of gestation. Recurrent miscarriages affect about 1-2% of couples trying to conceive; however, mechanisms leading to this complication are largely unknown. Our previous studies using comparative proteomics identified 314 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) in placental villous. In this study, we identified 5479 proteins from a total of 34157 peptides in decidua of patients with early recurrent miscarriage. Further analysis identified 311 DEPs in the decidua tissue; 159 proteins showed the increased expression while 152 proteins showed decreased expression. These 311 proteins were further analyzed using Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA). The results suggested that 50 DEPs could play important roles in the embryonic development. Furthermore, network analysis of the placental villous and decidua embryonic development DEPs was performed in STRING database to find the core gene. This study identifies several proteins that are specifically associated with embryonic development in decidua of patients with early recurrent miscarriage, these results provide new insights into potential biological mechanisms and may ultimately inform recurrent miscarriage.
Project description:Gene methylation profiling of immortalized human mesenchymal stem cells comparing HPV E6/E7-transfected MSCs cells with human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT)- and HPV E6/E7-transfected MSCs. hTERT may increase gene methylation in MSCs. Goal was to determine the effects of different transfected genes on global gene methylation in MSCs.