A study reporting high-quality placenta transcriptome based on the POPS study is published in Nature Communications. The placenta is understudied and is commonly omitted from large-scale “-omic” analyses such as the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project. This study enables tissue-wide comparison of transcriptome analyses, as well as identification of dysregulated transcripts in placentally-related adverse pregnancy outcomes such as fetal growth restriction (FGR) and preeclimisia (PE). The study reported FSTL3 (follistatin-like 3) mRNA is differentially expressed in both PE and FGR, and the serum levels of FSTL3 in pregnant women are predictive of subsequent PE and FGR. They also developed a Shiny web application to visualise the placenta transcriptome in an interactive manner.

Gong, S., Gaccioli, F., Dopierala, J. et al. The RNA landscape of the human placenta in health and disease. Nat Commun 12, 2639 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-22695-y