PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Beverly I. Strassmann
AU  - Patrick S. Potoczak
AU  - Christine Rysenga
AU  - Richard W. Lieberman
AU  - Claudius Vincenz
TI  - A new method for the sampling and preservation of placental specimens in low-resource settings for histology and analysis of nucleic acids
AID  - 10.1101/2022.01.12.476059
DP  - 2022 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2022.01.12.476059
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/01/18/2022.01.12.476059.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/01/18/2022.01.12.476059.full
AB  - Collection, preservation, and shipment of histological specimens in low-resource settings is challenging. We present a novel method that achieved excellent preservation of placental specimens from rural Mali by using formalin fixation, ethanol dehydration, and long-term storage in a solar-powered freezer. Sample preservation success was 92%, permitting evaluation of current and past malaria infection, anemia, placental maturity, and inflammation. Using RNAscope® hybridization we were able to visualize cell-specific gene expression patterns in the formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) specimens. Additionally, our method entailed mirrored sampling from the two cut faces of a cotyledon, one for the FFPE workflows and the other for storage in RNAlater and RNA-seq.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.