Non-invasive determination of gene expression in placental tissue using maternal plasma cell-free DNA fragmentation characters

The expression profiles of placental genes are crucial for understanding the pathogenesis of fetal development and placental-origin pregnancy syndromes. However, owing to ethical limitations and the risks of puncture sampling, it is difficult to obtain placental tissue samples repeatedly, continuously, multiple times, or in real time. Establishing a non-invasive method for predicting placental gene expression profiles through maternal plasma cell-free DNA (cfDNA) sequencing, which carries information about the source tissue and gene expression, can potentially solve this problem.