{
  "abstract": "Congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) is the most common congenital infection and a leading infectious cause of childhood hearing loss and neurodevelopmental disability. The cellular organization of the placental response to infection is incompletely defined. We applied Visium CytAssist spatial transcriptomics to formalin-fixed tissue from two CMV-infected and two uninfected late-gestation placentas and annotated the major maternal and fetal cell populations by reference-based label transfer. Across 16,074 spatial spots, the only significant compositional changes were increased T cell spots and decreased syncytiotrophoblast-enriched spots in CMV-infected placentas; the remaining populations showed similar changes but did not reach significance. Differential expression comparing CMV-infected to uninfected samples within each cell type identified two opposing programs. Infected placentas displayed a broad interferon-stimulated gene signature accompanied by induction of CXCR3-ligand chemokines, antigen-processing machinery, and the major histocompatibility complex class I transactivator NLRC5, classical-pathway complement components, and lymphocyte and plasma-cell markers, most pronounced in endothelial, stromal, and syncytiotrophoblast clusters and minimal in extravillous trophoblasts. Concurrently, infected placentas showed downregulation of trophoblast differentiation and syncytialization genes, including PAPPA2, pregnancy-specific glycoproteins, CGA, and GCM1, as well as vascular and hemostatic genes, including FLT1, VEGFA, PECAM1, and TFPI2. These data provide a cell-type-resolved molecular correlation of immune activation and placental dysfunction associated with congenital CMV. Together, the data indicate that congenital CMV infection is associated with a coordinated shift at the maternal-fetal interface, in which a broad interferon-driven immune response accompanies suppression of trophoblast-developmental and vascular programs, providing a cell-type-resolved reference for larger studies of placental CMV transmission. Future studies in larger cohorts will be needed to confirm these findings.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Center for Microbiome Research, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI 53226, USA.",
    "Department of Pediatrics, Division of Infectious Disease, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI 53226, USA.",
    "Department of Pathology, Children's Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI 53226, USA.",
    "Department of Pediatrics, Bioinformatics and Quantitative Child Health, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI 53226, USA.",
    "Iowa NeuroBank Core, Iowa Neuroscience Institute, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52246, USA."
  ],
  "article_type": "research article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 7,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Samantha N Atkinson",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-8571-8932"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Halli E Miller",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-2609-4482"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "Jason Jarzembowski"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "Christine Duris"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        3
      ],
      "name": "Amy Y Pan",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-7199-7704"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "Li-Chun Lin"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Ravit Arav-Boger",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-5363-167X"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/8z96gyxtab5pm.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.3390/v18101095",
  "fulltext_url": "https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13709714",
  "id": "8z96gyxtab5pm",
  "issns": [
    "1999-4915"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42944015",
  "language": "eng",
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "2713|Cytomegalovirus and herpesvirus research"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7220412777",
  "pdf_url": "https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13709714?pdf=render",
  "pmcid": "PMC13709714",
  "pmid": "42944015",
  "published": "2026-10-03",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/8z96gyxtab5pm.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:22:24Z",
      "native_id": "MED:42944015",
      "source": "europepmc",
      "url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42944015"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "medicine",
      "origin": "openalex:2713|Cytomegalovirus and herpesvirus research",
      "subfield": "epidemiology-public-health"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Spatial Transcriptomic Profiling of the Human Placenta in Congenital Cytomegalovirus Infection: A Broad Antiviral Response with Concurrent Suppression of Trophoblast and Vascular Programs.",
  "title_text": "Spatial Transcriptomic Profiling of the Human Placenta in Congenital Cytomegalovirus Infection: A Broad Antiviral Response with Concurrent Suppression of Trophoblast and Vascular Programs.",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:22:24Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/8z96gyxtab5pm",
  "venue": "Viruses",
  "versions": []
}