Conservation of gene expression patterns between the amniotic and nasal epithelium at birth

Amniotic epithelial cells are fetal-derived stem cells, capable of differentiating into all three germ layers, including mature epithelial cell populations. Here, we hypothesised that the amniotic epithelium might serve as a surrogate tissue source for investigating transcriptional profiles in the respiratory epithelium of newborns.

In this study, we compared gene expression profiles and weighted gene coexpression network structure in paired amniotic and newborn nasal epithelial samples from 85 participants in the Airway Epithelium Respiratory Illnesses and Allergy (AERIAL) cohort.

In total, 11 867 genes (79.7%) were commonly expressed in both amniotic and nasal epithelium, with uniquely expressed genes (2563 and 458, respectively) enriched for biological functions related to the specialist function of each tissue (e.g. developmental programs and ciliation, respectively). We observed a strong overlap in weighted gene coexpression network structure between both tissues, with 10 coexpression modules identified by consensus network analysis. Genes commonly expressed in both tissues and/or found in the consensus network modules were enriched for biologically relevant gene signatures and pathways related to airway function. We observed significant overlap in gene expression and network structure between the amniotic epithelium and published datasets of epithelial samples from lower airways and other epithelial tissues, including skin and oesophagus, suggesting a global epithelial signature.

We observed significant overlap in gene expression and network structure between paired amniotic and nasal epithelial samples, supporting the potential of amnion as a noninvasive and abundant tissue surrogate. Future studies investigating amnion-based biomarkers for respiratory exposures in utero and childhood disease outcomes are needed to extend these results towards clinical translation.