Prediction of subclinical endometritis in postpartum dairy cows from circulating cell-free miRNA profiles

We aim at identifying possible differences in miRNA profiles and individual circulating miRNA between healthy cows and cows with persistent inflammation as diagnosed by cytology and histology. Ultimately the miRNA profiles will be correslated with RNAseq results to be performed from endometrial biopsies (planned later on this year following laser micro dissection). Samples have been taken from 6 "healthy cows" with low presence of immune cells at 21 and 44 days post partum which were subsequently pregnant, and from 11 cows with high numbers of immune cells at 21 and 44 days post partum, all non pregnant. Healthy (H, n =6) and Subclinical-Endometritis (SCE, n =11) cows characterized by endometrial cytology and biopsy were blood sampled at 21 and 44 days postpartum. Following extraction of cell-free plasma miRNAs and RNA-seq analysis, differential abundance analysis of miRNAs was performed with the DESeq2 R package (adjusted p-value of 0.05), and discriminant analysis was used to combine the differently abundant miRNAs in a single variable and create a predictive model.