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Racial discrepancies in placental gene expressions between Black and White healthy and preeclampsia patients of equivalent BMI and blood pressure in a Southeastern USA cohort

GSE303840 Homo sapiens (human) RNA-seq (gene expression) 24 samples Submitted 2026/07/06 Platform GPL24676

At a glance

RNA-seq (gene expression) · human · 24 samples

What it is: RNA-seq (gene expression)Gene activity measured by sequencing. The summary does not mention single-cell work, so this is most likely bulk: one average per sample, the usual starting point for comparing groups.
Organism: Homo sapiens (human)
Samples: 24 samples: 6 × Black Normal vs 6 × Black Preeclamptic vs 6 × White Normal vs 6 × White PreeclampticGroups are read from the sample names, not from the paper. Check the list below.
Data you can get: A processed table (series matrix) and supplementary files from NCBI; the raw sequencing reads from ENA. Which of these hold counts depends on the study, so check the file list.

Summary (written by the submitters)

Preeclampsia is a devastating hypertensive disorder of pregnancy that afflicts between 5-10% of pregnancies in the US, with a higher prevalence in the southern regions of the United States. Black pregnant women are disproportionally at higher risk for preeclampsia onset and severity of disease than other racial groups, including White women.

Read the full summary ↓

Although this has been recognized in the maternal fetal medicine literature for many years, the underlying mechanism(s) for this racial disparity are unclear. One confounding issue with many studies of racial discrepancies in pregnant women is differences in comorbidities between racial groups. In our current study we were able to obtain a cohort of patients of self-identifying Black or White race that were overall matched for BMI, blood pressure, gestational age and parity and we hypothesized that genetic and placental markers of preeclampsia would be highest in our preeclampsia Black patients compared to healthy patients or White preeclampsia patients. We collected placenta tissue from this cohort of deliveries in Augusta, GA from both healthy and preeclamptic Black and White women (n=13-15). We measured expressions of several preeclampsia-implicated genes, as well as performed a placental morphological analysis and RNA sequencing of a subset of samples. Contrary to our hypothesis, our results from ddPCR analysis of genes associated with preeclampsia risk demonstrated that leptin, preproendothelin-1 (PPET-1) endothelial converting enzyme-1 (ECE-1) and soluble FMS-like tyrosine kinase-1 (sFlt-1) were higher in White preeclamptic women than in Black preeclamptic women. Our RNA sequencing analysis revealed that 136 genes significantly differed between White and Black normal pregnant patients, 288 genes differed between Black healthy and Black preeclampsia patients, while a striking 2394 genes significantly differed between White healthy and White preeclampsia patients and 2346 genes differed between White and Black preeclampsia patients. Placental histology analysis revealed that Black preeclampsia patients demonstrated a lower scoring of morphological pathologies associated with preeclampsia compared to White preeclampsia patients. Collectively, these data indicate that genetic predisposition to preeclampsia in White patients in the placenta differs greatly to that of Black patients, and that placental changes may be more subtle in Black patients that are at high risk for preeclampsia.

This dataset

Open GSE303840 in finder → Find more human RNA-seq datasets →

Download · which file do I need?

Direct links to NCBI and ENA, no account and no request form. Pick by what you want to do: take the small processed table to look, the supplementary files to re-analyse, or the original raw data to start over.

1 · Just have a look

Processed table

The series matrix: one table of values per sample as the submitters processed it. The smallest download, and it opens in Excel or R. Start here to see what the data look like.

Series matrix ↓

2 · Re-analyse it

Supplementary files

The count tables and other files the authors uploaded. Take only the samples you need, or the whole study as GSE303840_RAW.tar (it can run to tens of gigabytes).

All supplementary files ↗ Whole study · RAW.tar ↓

3 · Start from the raw reads

Raw sequencing reads

The original FASTQ files, straight from the sequencer, held at ENA. Large, and you align them yourself, so only choose this if you need to re-process the study from scratch.

Raw reads on ENA ↗

What the files usually look like: For RNA-seq the counts are usually a table among the supplementary files (look for 'counts', 'expression', 'FPKM' or 'TPM' in the file name). The series matrix of a sequencing study is sometimes nearly empty.

Also filed as BioProject PRJNA1297748 and SRA study SRP604035. Searching any of these in the dataset finder brings you back here.

NCBI GEO page ↗

Study design

6 × Black Normal vs 6 × Black Preeclamptic vs 6 × White Normal vs 6 × White Preeclamptic

Supports a between-group comparison across 24 samples.

How we read this: 4 replicated groups read from 24 sample titles; they account for 24 of them. These groups are guessed from the sample names, not taken from the paper, so check them against the sample list below before relying on them.

Samples in this study

GSM9136811 Black Normal 1 Black Normal
GSM9136812 Black Normal 2 Black Normal
GSM9136813 Black Normal 3 Black Normal
GSM9136814 Black Normal 4 Black Normal
GSM9136815 Black Normal 5 Black Normal
GSM9136816 Black Normal 6 Black Normal
GSM9136817 Black Preeclamptic 1 Black Preeclamptic
GSM9136818 Black Preeclamptic 2 Black Preeclamptic
GSM9136819 Black Preeclamptic 3 Black Preeclamptic
GSM9136820 Black Preeclamptic 4 Black Preeclamptic
GSM9136821 Black Preeclamptic 5 Black Preeclamptic
GSM9136822 Black Preeclamptic 6 Black Preeclamptic
GSM9136823 White Normal 1 White Normal
GSM9136824 White Normal 2 White Normal
GSM9136825 White Normal 3 White Normal
GSM9136826 White Normal 4 White Normal
GSM9136827 White Normal 5 White Normal
GSM9136828 White Normal 6 White Normal
GSM9136829 White Preeclamptic 1 White Preeclamptic
GSM9136830 White Preeclamptic 2 White Preeclamptic
GSM9136831 White Preeclamptic 3 White Preeclamptic
GSM9136832 White Preeclamptic 4 White Preeclamptic
GSM9136833 White Preeclamptic 5 White Preeclamptic
GSM9136834 White Preeclamptic 6 White Preeclamptic

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GSE287645 Maternal cause of early-onset preeclampsia: excessive endometrial gland-derived apolipoprotein D induces placental ferroptosis and developmental abnormalities 16 samples shares preeclampsia, placental
GSE290578 Searching for the influencers among placental immune cells in preeclampsia. 16 samples shares preeclampsia, placental
GSE279757 FOXP2 expression was decreased in placental tissue sample of patients with preeclampsia compared with healthy pregnant women 12 samples shares preeclampsia, placental
GSE271628 Multi-omics analysis of placental metabolomics and transcriptomics datasets reveals comprehensive insights into the pathophysiology of preeclampsia 11 samples shares preeclampsia, placental
GSE287713 Pasteurized Akkermansia muciniphila ameliorates preeclampsia via inhibiting mitochondrial dysfunction-mediated placental apoptosis in vivo and in vitro 9 samples shares preeclampsia, placental
GSE324111 Vascular endothelial growth factor receptors 1 and 3 mediate placental trophoblast leptin production in preeclampsia, inducing vascular dysfunction 6 samples shares preeclampsia, placental

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Metadata from NCBI GEO, cached and refreshed periodically — the NCBI page above is authoritative. Downloads link straight to NCBI/ENA; nothing is proxied through BioTransfer.