Vascular stability and maintenance in first trimester placental explants: An experimental study

Access to files

•   FULL-TEXT.PDF (pdf)

Abstract

The human placenta is a highly vascularised organ which is responsible for the outgrowth and wellbeing of the growing foetus. Understanding the vascular development of the early placenta may provide clues about physiological and pathological changes concerning the health of the foetus.In our study, 19 placental explants, aged 6-12 week of gestation were cultured for 24h and 72h. These explants were introduced to different conditions such as deprivation or addition of nutrients and/or growth factors and different oxygen concentrations. The attempt was to create an environment capable of holding vascular and cellular stability in vitro conditions for at least 72h, and to spot a light on how different media, growth factors and oxygen combinations interact with, and affect the vascular system structure.Explants were fixed or re-fed after each 24h passed, they were paraffin embedded later and studied by immunohistochemistry using CD31 as primary antibody. Our results show there is no significant change on the cellular level between 1% and 20% oxygen levels in in vitro cultures. A mixture of growth factors and nutrients is needed for the optimal maintenance and stability of the cells and vessels cultured for 72h. Vascular endothelial growth factor is an essential growth factor; however, the vascular system needs more than this growth factor to preserve the morphology of the endothelial cells and an intact blood vessel structure. Placental growth factor is another important growth factor in which it directs the vascular endothelial growth factor. Angiopoitin-1 shows preservative effects while Ang-2 shows damaging effects in first trimester explants in 24h 20% oxygen.

Keyword(s)

First trimester placenta; Placental growth factor; Vascular endothelial growth factor; Vascular structure; Vascular system maintenance

Bibliographic metadata

Institutional metadata

Record metadata