Gene

Cell type

Cell biology

Biology

Fetus

Preeclampsia

Computational biology

Genetics

Placenta

Transcriptome

Bioinformatics

Cell

Gene expression

Pregnancy

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Significance The human placenta is a dynamic and cellular heterogeneous organ, which is critical in fetomaternal homeostasis and the development of preeclampsia. Previous work has shown that placenta-derived cell-free RNA increases during pregnancy. We applied large-scale microfluidic single-cell transcriptomic technology to comprehensively characterize cellular heterogeneity of the human placentas and identified multiple placental cell-type–specific gene signatures. Analysis of the cellular signature expression in maternal plasma enabled noninvasive delineation of the cellular dynamics of the placenta during pregnancy and the elucidation of extravillous trophoblastic dysfunction in early preeclampsia.

Integrative single-cell and cell-free plasma RNA transcriptomics elucidates placental cellular dynamics