Used of transcriptomics to identify molecular signatures of utero-placenta tissues
Tissues throughout the human body exert finely-tuned specific functions even when there is considerable overlap in the cellular constituents. Even when the major cellular component of tissues is the same – for example in the case of smooth muscle-rich tissues - discrete phenotypes are evident.  Yet, the molecular expression profiles underpinning such specialised functionality is often unclear.  This presents a challenge for introducing new medicinal therapies for pathophysiologies: can one target what makes tissue functionality unique without producing unwanted effects on the features that are similar. Such a scenario can be considered for the human uteroplacental unit.  Ideally, one would like to target complications of pregnancy like pre-eclampsia (hypertension and proteinuria) or spontaneous preterm birth (early activation of parturition) by targeting particular types of smooth muscle tissues (e.g. arteries versus myometrium) without adversely affecting others.  This situation is further complicated by the need to consider maternal and fetoplacental circumstances.  Three smooth muscle-rich tissues of importance here are myometrium, maternal uterine (myometrial) arteries and placental arteries.  Indeed, each display subtly distinct phenotypes suggesting that distinct molecular signatures may underlie these differences. Hence, we aimed to compare expression profiles of these three tissues to identify the underpinning molecular signatures using multi-omics approaches. Overall design: To study transcriptome-wide expression of three smooth-muscle rich human utero-placental tissues, paired uterine biopsies and placentas were obtained, following written informed consent (LREC 10/H0906/71), from normal pregnant women undergoing elective Caesarean section at term (39-40 weeks gestation, n=9). Myometrial strips (M), myometrial arteries (MA) and placental chorionic plate arteries (PA) were each isolated, and cleaned of surrounding material, by careful microdissection, snap frozen in liquid N2 and stored at -80oC until further use. Comparative gene expression profiling analysis was carried using next generation RNA-seq data generated from these three utero-placental tissues.