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Roberto Romero

Bio: Roberto Romero is an academic researcher from National Institutes of Health. The author has contributed to research in topics: Amniotic fluid & Chorioamnionitis. The author has an hindex of 151, co-authored 1516 publications receiving 108321 citations. Previous affiliations of Roberto Romero include University of Michigan & Weizmann Institute of Science.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results suggest that RBP4 may participate in the host response against IAI, a physiologic constituent of the AF, among patients with PTL, and the median AF concentration of immunoreactive RBP 4 is elevated in pregnancies complicated by IAI.
Abstract: Objective. Retinol binding protein 4 (RBP4), a specific carrier for retinol in the blood, is a novel adipokine that has been implicated in the pathophysiology of insulin resistance, and its gene expression has been associated with adipose tissue inflammation. Recently, proteomic profiling of amniotic fluid (AF) from women with preterm labor (PTL) revealed over-expression of RBP4 in those who delivered preterm. The aim of this study was to determine whether RBP4 is present in AF, and if its concentrations change with gestational age, in the presence of labor, and intra-amniotic infection/inflammation (IAI) in patients with spontaneous PTL.Study design. This cross-sectional study included pregnant women in the following groups: (1) mid-trimester (n = 30); (2) term not in labor (n = 31); (3) term in labor (n = 30); (4) spontaneous PTL without IAI who delivered at term (n = 60); (5) PTL without IAI who delivered preterm (n = 64); and (6) PTL with IAI (n = 56). RBP4 concentrations in AF were determined by ELIS...

36 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
07 Sep 2011-PLOS ONE
TL;DR: The findings indicate that miRNA-mediated post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression machinery in the amnion plays an important role in the compartments and in a cell type-specific manner (AECs vs AMCs) for parturition.
Abstract: Background The human amnion plays a pivotal role in parturition. Two of its compartments, the placental amnion and the reflected amnion, have distinct transcriptome and are functionally coordinated for parturition. This study was conducted to determine the microRNA (miRNA) expression pattern and its significance in the placental amnion and the reflected amnion in association with labor at term. Methodology/Principal Findings MicroRNA microarray, real-time quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR), and miRNA in situ hybridization analyses of the placental amnion and the reflected amnion (n = 20) obtained at term were conducted. Luciferase assay, transfection, and qRT-PCR analyses of primary amnion epithelial cells (AECs) and amnion mesenchymal cells (AMCs) were performed. MicroRNA microarray analysis demonstrated differential expression of 32 miRNAs between the placental amnion and the reflected amnion after labor. Thirty-one (97%) miRNAs, which included miR-143 and miR-145, a cardiovascular-specific miRNA cluster, were down-regulated in the reflected amnion. Analyses of miR-143 and miR-145 by qRT-PCR confirmed microarray results, and further demonstrated their decreased expression in the reflected amnion with labor. Interestingly, expression of miR-143 and miR-145 was higher in AMCs than in AECs (p<0.05). Luciferase assay and transfection confirmed miR-143 binding to 3′ UTR of prostaglandin-endoperoxidase synthase 2 (PTGS2) mRNA and miR-143 regulation of PTGS2 in AMCs. Conclusions We report region-specific amniotic microRNAome and miR-143 regulation of PTGS2 in the context of human labor at term for the first time. The findings indicate that miRNA-mediated post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression machinery in the amnion plays an important role in the compartments (placental amnion vs reflected amnion) and in a cell type-specific manner (AECs vs AMCs) for parturition.

36 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Insight is provided into the mechanisms whereby hCG induces an anti-inflammatory microenvironment at the maternal-fetal interface during late gestation, and its effectiveness in preventing preterm labor/birth is demonstrated.
Abstract: Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is implicated in the maintenance of uterine quiescence by down-regulating myometrial gap junctions during pregnancy, and it was considered as a strategy to prevent preterm birth after the occurrence of preterm labor. However, the effect of hCG on innate and adaptive immune cells implicated in parturition is poorly understood. Herein, we investigated the immune effects of hCG at the maternal-fetal interface during late gestation, and whether this hormone can safely prevent endotoxin-induced preterm birth. Using immunophenotyping, we demonstrated that hCG has immune effects at the maternal-fetal interface (decidual tissues) by: 1) increasing the proportion of regulatory T cells; 2) reducing the proportion of macrophages and neutrophils; 3) inducing an M1 → M2 macrophage polarization; and 4) increasing the proportion of T helper 17 cells. Next, ELISAs were used to determine whether the local immune changes were associated with systemic concentrations of progesterone, estradiol, and/or cytokines (IFNgamma, IL1beta, IL2, IL4, IL5, IL6, IL10, IL12p70, KC/GRO, and TNFalpha). Plasma concentrations of IL1beta, but not progesterone, estradiol, or any other cytokine, were increased following hCG administration. Pretreatment with hCG prevented endotoxin-induced preterm birth by 44%, proving the effectiveness of this hormone as an anti-inflammatory agent. However, hCG administration alone caused dystocia and fetal compromise, as proven by Doppler ultrasound. These results provide insight into the mechanisms whereby hCG induces an anti-inflammatory microenvironment at the maternal-fetal interface during late gestation, and demonstrate its effectiveness in preventing preterm labor/birth. However, the deleterious effects of this hormone on mothers and fetuses warrant caution.

36 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A case-cohort study was designed to include 1000 randomly selected subjects and all remaining fetal deaths from a cohort of 4006 women with a singleton pregnancy, enrolled at 6-22 weeks of gestation, in a pregnancy biomarker cohort study as mentioned in this paper.

36 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Positive selection provides the basis for the hypothesis that changes in structure and function of the progesterone receptor during evolution contribute to the diversity of primate reproductive biology, especially in parturition.

36 citations


Cited by
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The philosophy and design of the limma package is reviewed, summarizing both new and historical features, with an emphasis on recent enhancements and features that have not been previously described.
Abstract: limma is an R/Bioconductor software package that provides an integrated solution for analysing data from gene expression experiments. It contains rich features for handling complex experimental designs and for information borrowing to overcome the problem of small sample sizes. Over the past decade, limma has been a popular choice for gene discovery through differential expression analyses of microarray and high-throughput PCR data. The package contains particularly strong facilities for reading, normalizing and exploring such data. Recently, the capabilities of limma have been significantly expanded in two important directions. First, the package can now perform both differential expression and differential splicing analyses of RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data. All the downstream analysis tools previously restricted to microarray data are now available for RNA-seq as well. These capabilities allow users to analyse both RNA-seq and microarray data with very similar pipelines. Second, the package is now able to go past the traditional gene-wise expression analyses in a variety of ways, analysing expression profiles in terms of co-regulated sets of genes or in terms of higher-order expression signatures. This provides enhanced possibilities for biological interpretation of gene expression differences. This article reviews the philosophy and design of the limma package, summarizing both new and historical features, with an emphasis on recent enhancements and features that have not been previously described.

22,147 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The latest version of STRING more than doubles the number of organisms it covers, and offers an option to upload entire, genome-wide datasets as input, allowing users to visualize subsets as interaction networks and to perform gene-set enrichment analysis on the entire input.
Abstract: Proteins and their functional interactions form the backbone of the cellular machinery. Their connectivity network needs to be considered for the full understanding of biological phenomena, but the available information on protein-protein associations is incomplete and exhibits varying levels of annotation granularity and reliability. The STRING database aims to collect, score and integrate all publicly available sources of protein-protein interaction information, and to complement these with computational predictions. Its goal is to achieve a comprehensive and objective global network, including direct (physical) as well as indirect (functional) interactions. The latest version of STRING (11.0) more than doubles the number of organisms it covers, to 5090. The most important new feature is an option to upload entire, genome-wide datasets as input, allowing users to visualize subsets as interaction networks and to perform gene-set enrichment analysis on the entire input. For the enrichment analysis, STRING implements well-known classification systems such as Gene Ontology and KEGG, but also offers additional, new classification systems based on high-throughput text-mining as well as on a hierarchical clustering of the association network itself. The STRING resource is available online at https://string-db.org/.

10,584 citations

01 Jun 2012
TL;DR: SPAdes as mentioned in this paper is a new assembler for both single-cell and standard (multicell) assembly, and demonstrate that it improves on the recently released E+V-SC assembler and on popular assemblers Velvet and SoapDeNovo (for multicell data).
Abstract: The lion's share of bacteria in various environments cannot be cloned in the laboratory and thus cannot be sequenced using existing technologies. A major goal of single-cell genomics is to complement gene-centric metagenomic data with whole-genome assemblies of uncultivated organisms. Assembly of single-cell data is challenging because of highly non-uniform read coverage as well as elevated levels of sequencing errors and chimeric reads. We describe SPAdes, a new assembler for both single-cell and standard (multicell) assembly, and demonstrate that it improves on the recently released E+V-SC assembler (specialized for single-cell data) and on popular assemblers Velvet and SoapDeNovo (for multicell data). SPAdes generates single-cell assemblies, providing information about genomes of uncultivatable bacteria that vastly exceeds what may be obtained via traditional metagenomics studies. SPAdes is available online ( http://bioinf.spbau.ru/spades ). It is distributed as open source software.

10,124 citations

01 Jan 2014
TL;DR: These standards of care are intended to provide clinicians, patients, researchers, payors, and other interested individuals with the components of diabetes care, treatment goals, and tools to evaluate the quality of care.
Abstract: XI. STRATEGIES FOR IMPROVING DIABETES CARE D iabetes is a chronic illness that requires continuing medical care and patient self-management education to prevent acute complications and to reduce the risk of long-term complications. Diabetes care is complex and requires that many issues, beyond glycemic control, be addressed. A large body of evidence exists that supports a range of interventions to improve diabetes outcomes. These standards of care are intended to provide clinicians, patients, researchers, payors, and other interested individuals with the components of diabetes care, treatment goals, and tools to evaluate the quality of care. While individual preferences, comorbidities, and other patient factors may require modification of goals, targets that are desirable for most patients with diabetes are provided. These standards are not intended to preclude more extensive evaluation and management of the patient by other specialists as needed. For more detailed information, refer to Bode (Ed.): Medical Management of Type 1 Diabetes (1), Burant (Ed): Medical Management of Type 2 Diabetes (2), and Klingensmith (Ed): Intensive Diabetes Management (3). The recommendations included are diagnostic and therapeutic actions that are known or believed to favorably affect health outcomes of patients with diabetes. A grading system (Table 1), developed by the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and modeled after existing methods, was utilized to clarify and codify the evidence that forms the basis for the recommendations. The level of evidence that supports each recommendation is listed after each recommendation using the letters A, B, C, or E.

9,618 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A short cervical length and a raised cervical-vaginal fetal fibronectin concentration are the strongest predictors of spontaneous preterm birth.

6,275 citations