The first reported use of fetal membrane as skin substitute was by Davis in 1910. 1 In 1913, Salbella presented the first clinical report of successful use of amniotic membrane in the treatment of burns and skin ulcerations. 2 In 1940, DeRoth reported the use of amniotic membrane in the repair of conjuctival defects. From 1940 to 1965 a number of clinical trials of successful use of amniotic me...

the human placenta has long been the subject of scientific interest due to the important roles which it performs during pregnancy in sustaining the fetus and maintaining fetomaternal tolerance. more recently, however, researchers have begun to investigate the possibility that the placenta’s utility may extend beyond fetal development to act as a source of cells with clinically relevant properti...

The long-term effect of differences in placentation in MZ twins is a controversial subject. An effect has been clearly established for birth weight but data on psychological traits are still under debate. We studied 20 pairs of monochorionic MZ (MC MZ) and 24 pairs of dichorionic MZ (DC MZ) twins. A chorion effect was observed for Block Design (WISC-R) confirming a previous report: MC MZ co-twi...

A case series of five patients with a total of six chronic non-healing wounds (>30 day duration) were non-randomly selected to evaluate the performance, safety and handling properties of dehydrated human amnion/chorion membrane allograft, an amniotic membrane scaffolding product. The patients had lower extremity wounds that had previously failed standard of care within a university outpatient/i...

Cytokines such as monocyte chemotactic peptide-1 (MCP-1), interleukin-8 (IL-8), RANTES (Regulated on Activation and Normally T-cells Expressed and presumably Secreted) and interleukin-10 (IL-10) are thought to play pivotal roles in immune recognition, acceptance of the fetal allograft, maintenance of pregnancy and parturition. Their secretion and regulation within the third trimester uterus is,...

We examined the contribution of the fetal membranes, amnion and chorion, to human embryonic and fetal hematopoiesis. A population of cells displaying a hematopoietic progenitor phenotype (CD34++ CD45low) of fetal origin was present in the chorion at all gestational ages, associated with stromal cells or near blood vessels, but was absent in the amnion. Prior to 15 weeks of gestation, these cell...

Two isoforms of 11 beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (11 beta HSD) are present in mammals. 11 beta HSD1 interconverts biologically active cortisol and inactive cortisone, whereas 11 beta HSD2 only converts cortisol to cortisone. Placental 11 beta HSD has been proposed to protect the fetus from high level of maternal glucocorticoids. Although bidirectional activity of 11 beta HSD has been demons...

OBJECTIVE To determine the relationship of prostaglandin endoperoxide H synthase (PGHS) expression in the gestational tissues and fetal fibronectin in cervico-vaginal fluids before the onset of labour at term. DESIGN Cross-sectional, observational study. SAMPLES Amnion, chorion laeve and decidua were collected from 24 term pregnant women following elective caesarean section. Samples of cerv...

Over-replication of two clusters of chorion genes in Drosophila ovarian follicle cells is essential for rapid eggshell biosynthesis. The relationship of this amplification to the follicle cell cycles has remained unclear. To investigate the regulation of amplification, we developed a technique to detect amplifying chorion genes in individual follicle cells using BrdU incorporation and FISH. Amp...

Chorion is the major component of silkmoth eggshell. More than 95% of its dry mass consists of the A and B families of low molecular weight structural proteins, which have remarkable mechanical and chemical properties protecting the oocyte and developing embryo from environmental hazards. We present data from FT-Raman spectroscopy of silkmoth chorion and amyloid-like fibrils formed from peptide...