scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question
Author

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
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Ten cases of prenatal diagnosis of Pentalogy of Cantrell are reported and a uniformly fatal outcome was found confirmed by a review of similar cases prenatally diagnosed by other authors.
Abstract: Ten cases of prenatal diagnosis of Pentalogy of Cantrell are reported. A uniformly fatal outcome was found confirmed by a review of similar cases prenatally diagnosed by other authors. This is at variance with the data derived from the pediatric literature. Implications in obstetrical management and parental counseling are discussed.

72 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Preeclampsia is associated with a lower median concentration of the HMW adiponectin isoform, the most active form of this adipokine, and a low HMW/total adip onectin ratio, a specific marker of adiponECTin biologic activity.
Abstract: Objective: Obesity, insulin resistance, and dyslipidemia are associated with preeclampsia Recently, "adipose tissue failure", characterized by dysregulation of adipokine production, has been implicated in the pathophysiology of these metabolic complications Adiponectin, an insulin-sensitizing, anti-atherogenic, anti-inflammatory and angiogenic adipokine, circulates in oligomeric complexes including: low-molecular-weight (LMW) trimers, medium-molecular-weight (MMW) hexamers and high-molecular-weight (HMW) isoforms These multimers exert differential biological effects, and HMW to total adiponectin ratio (S A ) has been reported to be a specific marker of adiponectin activity The aim of this study was to determine whether preeclampsia is associated with changes in circulating adiponectin multimers Study design: This cross-sectional study included women with: 1) normal pregnancy (n= 2 25); and 2) patients with mild preeclampsia (n=111) The study population was further stratified by first trimester BMI (normal weight <25 kg/m 2 vs overweight/obese ≥25 kg/m 2 ) Serum adiponectin multimers (total, HMW, MMW and LMW) concentrations were determined by ELISA Non-parametric statistics were used for analysis Results: 1) The median maternal HMW and LMW adiponectin concentrations were lower in patients with preeclampsia than in those with normal pregnancies (P < 0001 and P =001, respectively); 2) patients with preeclampsia had a lower HMW/total adiponectin ratio (P<0001) and higher MMW/total adiponectin and LMW/ total adiponectin ratios than those with a normal pregnancy (P < 0001 and P = 0009, respectively); 3) the presence of preeclampsia was independently associated with lower maternal serum HMW adiponectin concentrations (P= 0 001) and with a low HMW/total adiponectin ratio (P<0001) after correction for maternal age, maternal BMI, the difference in BMI between the third and the first trimester, and gestational age at sampling; and 4) overweight/obese pregnant women had a lower median total and HMW adiponectin concentration than normal weight pregnant women among women with normal pregnancies, but not among those with preeclampsia Conclusion: 1) Preeclampsia is associated with a lower median concentration of the HMW adiponectin isoform, the most active form of this adipokine, and a low HMW/ total adiponectin ratio, a specific marker of adiponectin biologic activity; 2) in contrast to normal pregnancy, preeclampsia is not associated with decreased circulating adiponectin multimers in overweight/obese individuals suggesting altered regulation of this adipokine in preeclampsia ; 3) collectively, these findings suggest that preeclampsia is characterized by alterations in adiponectin multimers and their relative distribution implying a role for adiponectin multimers in the mechanism of disease in preeclampsia

71 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Fetal death is characterised by higher maternal plasma concentrations of PlGF during the first trimester compared to normal pregnancy, and this profile changes into an anti-angiogenic one during the second and third trimesters.
Abstract: Objective. Women with a fetal death at the time of diagnosis have higher maternal plasma concentrations of the anti-angiogenic factor, soluble vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (sVEGFR)-1, than women with a normal pregnancy. An important question is whether these changes are the cause or consequence of fetal death. To address this issue, we conducted a longitudinal study and measured the maternal plasma concentrations of selective angiogenic and anti-angiogenic factors before the diagnosis of a fetal death. The anti-angiogenic factors studied were sVEGFR-1 and soluble endoglin (sEng), and the angiogenic factor, placental growth factor (PlGF).Methods. This retrospective longitudinal nested case–control study included 143 singleton pregnancies in the following groups: (1) patients with uncomplicated pregnancies who delivered a term infant with an appropriate weight for gestational age (n = 124); and (2) patients who had a fetal death (n = 19). Blood samples were collected at each prenatal visit, s...

71 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: To determine if a fall in serum progesterone concentrations occurs before the onset of bacterial product-induced preterm parturition in animals, pregnant mice at day 15 and timed-pregnant rabbits were inoculated transcervically with a suspension of E. coli to cause an ascending intrauterine infection.
Abstract: Bacterial products are thought to induce labor by stimulating the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines and prostaglandins in gestational tissues, leading to the onset of preterm parturition. Progesterone withdrawal is a prerequisite of parturition in many species. Yet a role for progesterone in the mechanisms responsible for preterm parturition, in the setting of infection, is unclear. The current studies were conducted to determine if a fall in serum progesterone concentrations occurs before the onset of bacterial product-induced preterm parturition in animals.Accordingly, pregnant mice at day 15 (70% gestation) were injected i.p. with Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS; 50 μg/mouse) and timed-pregnant rabbits were inoculated transcervically with a suspension of E. coli to cause an ascending intrauterine infection. Control animals in both groups received equal volumes of sterile phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) solution. Blood specimens were collected at regular intervals and serum progesterone ...

71 citations


Cited by
More filters
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