A miniature placenta built using stem cells is an organoid that could help understand some of the problems that can develop during pregnancy, such as preeclampsia also known as pregnancies.
Described in the journal Cell Stem Cell, the 3D mini-organ was obtained by Ashley Moffett's group, from the University of Cambridge.
The success of a pregnancy often depends on the development of the placenta during the first weeks of gestation, a phase in which the placenta which plays a connecting role between the mother and the fetus must implant itself correctly in the mother's uterus.
"This is an incredibly difficult process to study," Moffett said, "so much so that the period after implantation, when the placenta inserts into the endometrium, is often described as a black box of human development."
Precisely to understand what happens in these phases, the researchers recreated an almost perfect replica of the placenta in the laboratory, starting from placental tissue, so much so that a positive response was recorded in an over-the-counter pregnancy test.
The new model, also defined as trophoblast organoids, has made it possible to analyze in great detail everything that happens during implantation, a sort of invasion due to an external agent, in this case the fetus, in which it is crucial the role also played by the immune system which must not prevent what may appear to be an external aggression.
"This is the only situation where a normal cell invades and transforms an artery, and these cells come from another individual, the child," Moffett said.
An action made possible, the researchers discovered, also thanks to the participation of some genes that regulate blood flow and which would play a role in preeclampsia.
"Women usually have preeclampsia at the end of pregnancy, but to really understand it - added Moffett - to predict and prevent it, we need to look at what happens in the first few weeks. By using 'mini-placentas', we can do just that, providing clues on how and why preeclampsia occurs".
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