Long-read transcriptome assembly reveals vast transcriptional complexity in the placenta associated with metabolic and endocrine function

Abstract

The placenta is critical for fetal development and mediates the effects of pregnancy complications on offspring metabolic health, yet it is often poorly characterized in genomic studies. Existing transcriptomic analyses rely on adult tissue-based references, which overlook developmentally important isoform diversity. We used largest-in-class long-read RNA-seq (N=72) to create a comprehensive placental transcriptome reference, identifying 37,661 high-confidence isoforms (14,985 novel) across 12,302 genes (2,759 novel). Contrary to characterizations of the placenta as a "transcriptomic void," we found transcriptional breadth and complexity comparable to adult tissues, with extraordinary splicing diversity in genes controlling obesity, lactogen production and growth, including 108 distinct CSH1 (placental lactogen) isoforms. This improved reference offers two advantages: First, it reduced inferential uncertainty in isoform quantification by 30% and increased the yield of high-confidence transcripts. Applying this reference to short-read RNA-seq datasets (N=344) of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), we found that placental transcription mediated 36% of GDM effects on birth weight, with novel CSH1 isoforms identified as key mediators. We further uncovered ancestry-specific effects, with distinct CSH1 isoforms mediating larger effects in European (24.4%) than Asian (13.4%) populations. Our results establish that utilizing long-read-based, tissue-specific transcriptomic annotations is critical, enabling isoform-resolved analyses that provide greater sensitivity than conventional gene-level approaches for understanding placental function and context-specific variation across diverse biobanks.