British Columbia Cancer Research Centre, 675 West 10th Ave, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
IWK Health Centre, Halifax, NS, Canada.
Sci Data. 2021 Jul 2;8(1):166. doi: 10.1038/s41597-021-00948-1.
Proper functioning of the human placenta is critical for maternal and fetal health. While microRNAs (miRNAs) are known to impact placental gene expression, the effects of other small non-coding RNAs (sncRNAs) on the placental transcriptome are not well-established, and are emerging topics in the study of environmental influence on fetal development and reproductive health. Here, we assembled a cohort of 30 placental chorionic villi samples of varying gestational ages (M ± SD = 23.7 ± 11.3 weeks) to delineate the human placental sncRNA transcriptome through small RNA sequence analysis. We observed expression of 1544 sncRNAs, which include 48 miRNAs previously unannotated in humans. Additionally, 18,003 miRNA variants (isomiRs) were identified from the 654 observed miRNA species. This characterization of the term and pre-term placental sncRNA transcriptomes provides data fundamental to future investigations of their regulatory functions in the human placenta, and the baseline expression pattern needed for identifying changes in response to environmental factors, or under disease conditions.
人类胎盘的正常功能对母婴健康至关重要。虽然已知 microRNAs（miRNAs）会影响胎盘基因表达，但其他小非编码 RNA（sncRNAs）对胎盘转录组的影响尚未得到很好的证实，并且是研究环境对胎儿发育和生殖健康影响的新兴课题。在这里，我们收集了 30 个不同胎龄（M ± SD = 23.7 ± 11.3 周）的胎盘绒毛样本，通过小 RNA 序列分析来描绘人类胎盘 sncRNA 转录组。我们观察到 1544 种 sncRNAs 的表达，其中包括 48 种以前在人类中未注释的 miRNA。此外，从观察到的 654 种 miRNA 中鉴定出了 18003 种 miRNA 变体（isomiRs）。这些足月和早产胎盘 sncRNA 转录组的特征为未来研究它们在人类胎盘中的调节功能提供了数据基础，并且为识别对环境因素或疾病条件的反应中的变化所需的基线表达模式提供了基础。
