The placenta is the principal metabolic, respiratory, excretory, and endocrine organ for the first 9 months of fetal life. Its role in fetal and maternal physiology is remarkably diverse. Because of the central role that the placenta has in fetal and maternal physiology and development, the possibility that variation in placental gene expression patterns might be linked to important abnormaliti...

Human placentation entails the remarkable integration of fetal and maternal cells into a single functional unit. In the basal plate region (the maternal-fetal interface) of the placenta, fetal cytotrophoblasts from the placenta invade the uterus and remodel the resident vasculature and avoid maternal immune rejection. Knowing the molecular bases for these unique cell-cell interactions is import...

We investigated the in vitro transfer of three parathyroid hormone (PTH) fragments (amino acids 35-84, 44-68 and 65-84) through human placenta at term. The perfused and transferred fragments were measured radioimmunologically and identified by three different methods: high-pressure-liquid chromatography (HPLC), preparative flat-bed electrofocusing (PEGG), and gel filtration (GF). The study demo...

INTRODUCTION Advocates of human maternal placentophagy report that encapsulated placenta is an excellent source of dietary iron. Our study compared the effect of ingested encapsulated placenta on maternal postpartum iron status versus that of a beef placebo. METHODS A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled pilot study (N = 23) was conducted among healthy human research participants expe...

Reactive oxygen species are unavoidable products of metabolism and in excess they can be dangerous for tissues and cells. Superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), among others, protect tissues and cells against reactive oxygen species. The aim of the study was the description of SOD and GSH-Px from bovine placenta by use of spectrophotometric and electrophoretic analysis ...

BACKGROUND Celiac disease (CD) occurs in as many as 1 in 80 pregnant women and is associated with poor pregnancy outcome, but it is not known if this is an effect on maternal nutrient absorption or, alternatively, if the placenta is an autoimmune target. The major autoantigen, tissue transglutaminase (tTG), has previously been shown to be present in the maternal-facing syncytiotrophoblast plasm...

During pregnancy, the placenta forms the interface between mother and fetus. Highly controlled regulation of trans-placental trafficking is therefore essential for the healthy development of the growing fetus. Extracellular vesicle-mediated transfer of protein and nucleic acids from the human placenta into the maternal circulation is well documented; the possibility that this trafficking is bi-...

BACKGROUND The paca is a South American rodent with potential as a commercial food animal. We examined paca placenta as part of a wider effort to understand the reproductive biology of this species. METHODS Thirteen specimens between midgestation and term of pregnancy were studied by light and transmission electron microscopy. RESULTS The placenta is divided into several lobes separated by ...

Since the excretion of potentially toxic cholephilic organic anions (COAs) produced by the fetus, such as bile acids and biliary pigments, cannot be performed by the fetal liver alone, the placenta and the maternal liver must play a key role collaborating in this function. COAs are transported across the plasma membranes of fetal and maternal hepatocytes and trophoblastic cells via similar carr...

BACKGROUND To study in a large-scale cohort with prospective data the associations between psychosocial stress during pregnancy and placenta weight at birth. Animal data suggest that the placenta is involved in stress-related fetal programming. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We defined a priori two types of psychosocial stress during pregnancy, life stress (perceived burdens in major areas of...