The role of placental DNA methylation in the pathogenesis of chronic intervillositis of unknown etiology
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: Chronic intervillositis of unknown etiology (CIUE) is the pathological influx of maternal inflammatory cells into the intervillous space of the placenta without demonstrable cause. CIUE is associated with placental damage and increased risk of pregnancy loss, fetal demise, and growth restriction. The pathogenic mechanism is unclear, and we lack biomarkers for detection, and treatments to prevent recurrence. DNA methylation (DNAme) is a biomarker altered in association with many disease states. We hypothesized that CIUE may be associated with a distinct signature placental DNAme signature. METHODS: DNAme was profiled using the Illumina Infinium MethylationEPIC v2.0 array on fresh-frozen placental tissue. After quality control, data were available for 24 CIUE (14 high grade, 10 low grade) and 27 non-CIUE placental samples, plus six independent decidua samples. CIUE was confirmed and graded by a perinatal pathologist. Contamination was assessed using the 65 array genotyping probes, placental cell composition and epigenetic age were estimated. After processing, DNAme data were available at 855,732 CpGs. RESULTS: Several lines of evidence indicated maternal DNA in CIUE placentas. Genetic contamination metrics were higher in CIUE than non-CIUE cases. In XY samples, X chromosome copy number increased with CIUE grade, suggesting XX contaminating DNA. Principal components analysis placed CIUE samples closer to decidua along PC1 than non-CIUE samples, cell composition showed elevated Hofbauer cells, monocytes, and neutrophils in CIUE. Epigenetic age was higher in CIUE versus non-CIUE samples. Together, these findings suggested an increased concentration of non-self XX DNA in CIUE cases, likely originating from an adult, macrophage-rich source, suggesting a maternal origin. An epigenome-wide association study found that all significant differentially methylated loci associated with CIUE were attenuated after adjusting for cell composition. CONCLUSIONS: Our results illustrate that placental DNAme patterns in CIUE reflect signatures of maternal infiltration rather than intrinsic DNAme alterations. This study also highlights the value of integrating the diverse molecular data outputs of DNAme arrays to explore the presence of maternal cells in placental tissue.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".