Umbilical Cord Blood Cell Transcriptional and Methylation Signatures at Birth Are Associated with BPD Development [RRBS]

Most existing clinical prediction models for BPD show limited accuracy in predicting BPD development when validated using external data, stressing the need for novel biomarkers to identify at-risk infants for early and effective interventions. We leveraged the existing buffy coat of the frozen umbilical cord blood samples from the Northwestern University Cord Blood Biobank (NUCord) to perform parallel RNA and DNA extraction.

BPD-associated differentially expressed genes (DEGs) includes BPD marker established in previous mouse studies and gene related to NF-κB signaling and immune responses. We also identified that BPD development is associated with disrupted methylation signatures in microRNA genes and genes associated with disrupted glucose metabolism. Our results suggest that BPD development is associated with distinct epigenetic and transcriptomic signatures when compared to healthy term infants and preterm infants.