Predictive RNA profiles for early and very early spontaneous preterm birth.

Background: Spontaneous preterm birth remains the main driver of childhood morbidity and mortality. Because of an incomplete understanding of the molecular pathways that result in spontaneous preterm birth, accurate predictive markers and target therapeutics remain elusive.

Objective: This study sought to determine if a cell-free RNA profile could reveal a molecular signature in maternal blood months before the onset of spontaneous preterm birth.

RNA profiles reveal signatures of future health and disease in pregnancy.

Maternal morbidity and mortality continue to rise, and pre-eclampsia is a major driver of this burden. Yet the ability to assess underlying pathophysiology before clinical presentation to enable identification of pregnancies at risk remains elusive. Here we demonstrate the ability of plasma cell-free RNA (cfRNA) to reveal patterns of normal pregnancy progression and determine the risk of developing pre-eclampsia months before clinical presentation.

Features in short guanine-rich sequences that stimulate DNA polymerization in vitro.

We have discovered that short guanine-rich oligonucleotides are able to self-associate into higher order structures that stimulate DNA synthesis in vitro without the addition of a conventional template [Ying, J., Bradley, R. K.