A Genome Scale Transcriptional Regulatory Model of the Human Placenta

Gene regulation is essential to placental function and fetal development. We built a genome-scale transcriptional regulatory network (TRN) of the human placenta using digital genomic footprinting and transcriptomic data. We integrated 475 transcriptomes and 12 DNase hypersensitivity datasets from placental samples to globally and quantitatively map transcription factor (TF)-target gene interactions. We performed siRNA knockdowns of 4 TFs and achieved concordance between the predicted gene targets in our TRN. We constructed a human placental-specific genome scale TRN with RNA sequencing data compiled from 475 placental collected in two independent birth cohorts. This GEO dataset contains the data from the MWH cohort.