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Scientists have developed "mini placentas," which could turn research into underlying causes of miscarriages, stillbirths, and other pregnancy disorders.
The tiny organoids mimic the placenta in the early first trimester and will be used to understand how the tissue grows during a healthy pregnancy and what goes wrong when it fails.
Mini placentas are so similar to reality that they can deceive over-the-counter pregnancy tests. "If we put a pregnancy stick in the organoids that he reads in pregnancy," said Ashley Moffett, senior team researcher and professor of reproductive immunology at the University of Cambridge.
During a healthy pregnancy, the placenta develops and attaches to the wall of the uterus where it provides oxygen and nutrients to the baby while eliminating waste blood of the fetus. He also secretes hormones in the mother.
Pregnancies can fail when the embryo is not properly involved in the uterus and the placenta is not properly fixed. Understanding what is wrong in these cases has been difficult to study because scientists do not have a placenta to study and placentas from other animals are too different to allow meaningful comparisons.
"We can now begin to experiment on how placental development occurs in the uterine environment," said Moffett.
The Cambridge team developed organoids in his laboratory using cells of structures resembling fronds, called villi, which are found in placental tissue. The cells are organized in multicellular structures able to secrete proteins and hormones that affect the mother's metabolism during pregnancy.
The size of the organelles varies from a tenth of a millimeter to a half millimeter. They can be frozen and stored and thawed as needed.
Researchers want to use organoids to study some of the most common pregnancy disorders, such as pre-eclampsia, stillbirth, and growth restriction. But laboratory-developed mini placentas will also help scientists understand how certain infections affect unborn children.
Zika virus outbreaks have been associated with abnormal brain development in infants born to infected women, but it is not known how the virus crosses the placenta while the very similar dengue virus does not.
Other work will focus on hormones and proteins secreted by organoids as they grow, to identify substances that could quickly detect placental dysfunction. "These women could be followed more closely," said Moffett. The details of the research are published in Nature.
Margherita Turco, lead author of the research, said: "The placenta is absolutely essential to support the baby's growth within the mother. When it does not work properly, it can result in serious problems, from pre-eclampsia to miscarriage, with immediate consequences for the entire life of the mother and child. "
Mini placentas could also be used to check the safety of new drugs taken in early pregnancy and to explain how chromosomal abnormalities can interfere with the normal development of the baby. According to researchers, placentas could also provide stem cell therapies.
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