Perinatal granulopoiesis and risk of pediatric asthma

Abstract

There are perinatal characteristics, such as gestational age, reproducibly associated with risk for pediatric asthma. Identification of biologic processes influenced by these characteristics could facilitate risk stratification or new therapeutic targets. We hypothesized that transcriptional changes associated with multiple epidemiologic risk factors would be mediators of pediatric asthma risk. Using publicly available transcriptomic data from cord blood mononuclear cells, transcription of genes involved in myeloid differentiation were observed to be inversely associated with a pediatric asthma risk stratification based on multiple perinatal risk factors. This gene signature was validated in an independent prospective cohort and was specifically associated with genes localizing to neutrophil specific granules. Further validation demonstrated that umbilical cord blood serum concentration of PGLYRP-1, a specific granule protein, was inversely associated with mid-childhood current asthma and early-teen FEV1/FVCx100. Thus, neutrophil specific granule abundance at birth predicts risk for pediatric asthma and pulmonary function in adolescence.

Whole-Genome Promoter Profiling of Plasma Cell-Free DNA Exhibits Predictive Value for Preterm Birth

“…Placenta and whole blood expression profiles for preterm pregnancies (GSE73685) were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database 24 and then normalized using GEOquery (ver. 3.3.1).…”