1887

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Volume 102, Issue 11

Metagenomic profiling of placental tissue suggests DNA virus infection of the placenta is rare Open Access

Abstract

It is widely recognized that pathogens can be transmitted across the placenta from mother to foetus. Recent re-evaluation of metagenomic studies indicates that the placenta has no unique microbiome of commensal bacteria. However, viral transmission across the placenta, including transmission of DNA viruses such as the human herpesviruses, is possible. A fuller understanding of which DNA virus sequence can be found in the placenta is required. We employed a metagenomic analysis to identify viral DNA sequences in placental metagenomes from full-term births (20 births), pre-term births (13 births), births from pregnancies associated with antenatal infections (12 births) or pre-term births with antenatal infections (three births). Our analysis found only a small number of DNA sequences corresponding to the genomes of human herpesviruses in four of the 48 metagenomes analysed. Therefore, our data suggest that DNA virus infection of the placenta is rare and support the concept that the placenta is largely free of pathogen infection.

  • Received:
  • Accepted:
  • Published Online:
Keyword(s): herpes , metagenomic profiling , placenta and virus
Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • Wellcome Trust (Award 204809/Z/16/Z)
    • Principle Award Recipient: BlairL Strang
© 2021 The Authors
  • This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. This article was made open access via a Publish and Read agreement between the Microbiology Society and the corresponding author’s institution.
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2021-11-01
2024-04-26
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Metagenomic profiling of placental tissue suggests DNA virus infection of the placenta is rare
J. Gen. Virol. 102, 001677 (2021); https://doi.org/10.1099/jgv.0.001677
/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/jgv.0.001677
/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/jgv.0.001677
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