Figure 3.

Expression of inflammatory mediators in conditioned media of human placental explants incubated with COVID mRNA vaccine

Chorionic villi explants derived from second or third trimester human placenta (n = 6) were incubated with 0.1 μg/mL or 1 μg/mL mRNA-1237 (n = 4) or BNT162B2 (n = 2) vaccines for 0.5 h or 4 h. Conditioned media were collected and levels of 20 unique cytokines were measured using the Luminex multiplex assay.

(A) Distribution in abundance of cytokines in all samples. Black bars represent median levels in cytokine abundance.

(B) Hierarchical clustering of samples by levels of cytokines. We excluded cytokines of low variance from this analysis (n = 6 cytokines). In general, sample profiles clustered by culture time (0.5 vs. 4 h).

(C) Significance of factors in cytokine expression evaluated using multiple linear regression models. Asterisks represent significance cutoffs: p < 0.05 (∗); p < 0.005 (∗∗); and p < 0.0005 (∗∗∗). Abbreviations listed for factors assessed in our analysis: mRNA-1237 (M), BNT162B2 (P) vaccines, culture time (Time), or trimester (Age). See also Figure S1.