Circulating RNA profiles of healthy and preeclamptic pregnancies

This prospective study investigated whether circulating RNA (C-RNA; cell free RNA present in the bloodstream) measurements could non-invasively monitor pregnancy status, with emphasis on detecting molecular markers associated with preterm preeclampsia. Whole blood samples were collected from pregnant women at the time of diagnosis with early-onset preeclampsia with severe features. Blood samples were also obtained normotypical control pregnancies and from patients diagnosed with late-onset preeclampsia for comparison.

For all samples, C-RNA was extracted from 4 mL blood and whole transcriptome enrichment performed on cDNA libraries prior to sequencing to a target depth of 50M reads on an Illumina HiSeq 2000 platform. Throughout the course of this work, whole transcriptome RNA sequencing data was obtained from 289 C-RNA samples collected from 178 subjects. The complete dataset consists of samples from the following cohorts:

• Illumina Preeclampsia Cohort (iPEC): 40 pregnancies at the time of early-onset preeclampsia diagnosis and 73 gestational age-matched controls
• PEARL preeclampsia cohort: 12 early-onset and 12 late-onset preeclampsia patients
• PEARL healthy control cohort: 152 longitundinal samples collected from 41 healthy pregnancies

• Type: Case-Control
• Archiver: The database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGaP)