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Time Profile of Appearance and Disappearance of Circulating Placenta-Derived mRNA in Maternal Plasma

Departments of¹ Chemical Pathology and² Obstetrics and Gynaecology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital, Hong Kong SAR;³ Department of Histology, Medical Embryology, Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Bologna, Policlinico S. Orsola Malpighi, Bologna, Italy;

^aaddress correspondence to this author at: Department of Chemical Pathology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Room 38023, 1/F Clinical Sciences Building, Prince of Wales Hospital, 30-32 Ngan Shing Street, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China; fax 852-2194-6171, e-mail loym{at}cuhk.edu.hk

Abstract

Background: Fetal RNA of placental origin has been detected in the plasma of pregnant women, but the timing of the first appearance and the detailed kinetics of postdelivery clearance of such circulating RNA have not been studied.

Methods: To address the timing of the first appearance of circulating placental RNA, we collected serial maternal blood samples from 47 women who had conceived by assisted reproductive procedures. To address the postdelivery clearance kinetics, we collected serial postdelivery blood samples from 6 pregnant women who had delivered by cesarean section. Placenta-derived transcripts were sought by real-time quantitative reverse transcription-PCR.

Results: The earliest gestational age at which human placental lactogen and human chorionic gonadotropin ß-subunit mRNAs were detectable in a proportion of the pregnant women was the 4th week of gestation. The postdelivery study indicated that the median apparent half-life for the clearance of human placental lactogen mRNA was 14 min.

Conclusions: Placenta-derived mRNA can be found in maternal plasma from very early on in gestation, suggesting a possible role for early noninvasive prenatal diagnosis or monitoring. The rapid kinetics of circulating placental mRNA suggest that its plasma concentrations may be used to monitor recent physiologic or pathologic events.

The following articles in journals at HighWire Press have cited this article:

				N. B. Y TSUI and Y. M DENNIS LO Placental RNA in Maternal Plasma: Toward Noninvasive Fetal Gene Expression Profiling. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci., September 1, 2006; 1075: 96 - 102. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]