Figure 2.
Examples of applications of placental DNAme in assessing and improving maternal and fetal health. These include: detecting altered DNAme linked to in utero exposures; detecting placental-specific DNAme signatures in maternal blood; quantifying maternal immune cells infiltrating the placenta; subclassifying placental phenotypes into more homogenous groups; diagnosing chromosomal imbalance or imprinting errors; and using methylation changes linked to disease to identify nearby predisposing SNPs (mQTLs).