ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2013
The human placenta methylome.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 197 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
197 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 312 citations in OpenAlex.
- Epigenetic landscape of placental tissue in preeclampsia: a systematic review of DNA methylation profiles.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2025Pooled it
- A meta-analysis of pre-pregnancy maternal body mass index and placental DNA methylation identifies 27 CpG sites with implications for mother-child health.Communications biology · 2022Pooled it
- Placental DNA methylation signatures of maternal smoking during pregnancy and potential impacts on fetal growth.Nature communications · 2021Pooled it
- Current approaches and developments in transcript profiling of the human placenta.Human reproduction update · 2020Pooled it
- Gestational tissue transcriptomics in term and preterm human pregnancies: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC medical genomics · 2015Pooled it
- Integrative transcriptome meta-analysis reveals widespread sex-biased gene expression at the human fetal-maternal interface.Molecular human reproduction · 2014Pooled it
- Development and Validation of a Novel Placental DNA Methylation Biomarker of Maternal Smoking during Pregnancy in the ECHO Program.Environmental health perspectives · 2024Trial
- Microarray-Based Analysis of Methylation of 1st Trimester Trisomic Placentas from Down Syndrome, Edwards Syndrome and Patau Syndrome.PloS one · 2016Trial
- Epigenetic blind spots - the role of DNA methylation dynamics in stem cell-based models of embryogenesis.FEBS letters · 2026Article
- Human body single-cell atlas of three-dimensional genome organization and DNA methylation.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2026Article
- Conserved and divergent DNA methylation features of extraembryonic tissues between human, mouse and chicken.BMC genomics · 2026Article
- Transposable element regulation in mammalian germ cells and other contexts: multilayered repression, fertility, and regulated activation.Epigenomics · 2026Review
- DNA methylation reprogramming in marsupial embryos is restricted to the extraembryonic lineage.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Review
- Maternal Chrono-Nutrition and Placental DNA Methylation: The BiSC Study.Molecular nutrition & food research · 2026Article
- Long-read assembly reveals vast transcriptional complexity in the placenta associated with metabolic and endocrine function.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Single-cell analysis reveals essential lncRNAs regulating human trophoblast lineage differentiation.Life medicine · 2026Article
- Risks of cardiometabolic diseases in women with history of adverse pregnancy outcomes.Journal of human hypertension · 2026Review
- Epigenetic Regulation of Imprinted Genes in the Neurodevelopment of Offspring Born to Women with Preeclampsia: A Review.International journal of women's health · 2026Review
- DNA methylation as a biomarker of prenatal exposures: current challenges and opportunities.Environmental epigenetics · 2026Review
137 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Tissue-specific DNA methylation is found at promoters, enhancers, and CpG islands but also over larger genomic regions. In most human tissues, the vast majority of the genome is highly methylated (>70%). Recently, sequencing of bisulfite-treated DNA (MethylC-seq) has revealed large partially methylated domains (PMDs) in some human cell lines. PMDs cover up to 40% of the genome and are associated with gene repression and inactive chromatin marks. However, to date, only cultured cells and cancers have shown evidence for PMDs. Here, we performed MethylC-seq in full-term human placenta and demonstrate it is the first known normal tissue showing clear evidence of PMDs. We found that PMDs cover 37% of the placental genome, are stable throughout gestation and between individuals, and can be observed with lower sensitivity in Illumina 450K Infinium data. RNA-seq analysis confirmed that genes in PMDs are repressed in placenta. Using a hidden Markov model to map placental PMDs genome-wide and compare them to PMDs in other cell lines, we found that genes within placental PMDs have tissue-specific functions. For regulatory regions, methylation levels in promoter CpG islands are actually higher for genes within placental PMDs, despite the lower overall methylation of surrounding regions. Similar to PMDs, polycomb-regulated regions are hypomethylated but smaller and distinct from PMDs, with some being hypermethylated in placenta compared with other tissues. These results suggest that PMDs are a developmentally dynamic feature of the methylome that are relevant for understanding both normal development and cancer and may be of use as epigenetic biomarkers.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.