- Presicce, Pietro;
- Cappelletti, Monica;
- Morselli, Marco;
- Ma, Feiyang;
- Senthamaraikannan, Paranthaman;
- Protti, Giulia;
- Nadel, Brian;
- Aryan, Laila;
- Eghbali, Mansoureh;
- Salwinski, Lukasz;
- Pithia, Neema;
- De Franco, Emily;
- Pellegrini, Matteo;
- Jobe, Alan;
- Chougnet, Claire;
- Miller, Lisa;
- Kallapur, Suhas
Intrauterine infection/inflammation (IUI) is a frequent complication of pregnancy leading to preterm labor and fetal inflammation. How inflammation is modulated at the maternal-fetal interface is unresolved. We compared transcriptomics of amnion (a fetal tissue in contact with amniotic fluid) in a preterm Rhesus macaque model of IUI induced by lipopolysaccharide with human cohorts of chorioamnionitis. Bulk RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) amnion transcriptomic profiles were remarkably similar in both Rhesus and human subjects and revealed that induction of key labor-mediating genes such as IL1 and IL6 was dependent on nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) signaling and reversed by the anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) antibody Adalimumab. Inhibition of collagen biosynthesis by IUI was partially restored by Adalimumab. Interestingly, single-cell transcriptomics, flow cytometry, and immunohistology demonstrated that a subset of amnion mesenchymal cells (AMCs) increase CD14 and other myeloid cell markers during IUI both in the human and Rhesus macaque. Our data suggest that CD14+ AMCs represent activated AMCs at the maternal-fetal interface.