Placental Villous Explant Culture 2.0: Flow Culture Allows Studies Closer to the In Vivo Situation

During pregnancy, freely floating placental villi are adapted to fluid shear stress due to placental perfusion with maternal plasma and blood. In vitro culture of placental villous explants is widely performed under static conditions, hoping the conditions may represent the in utero environment. How...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Nadja Kupper, Elisabeth Pritz, Monika Siwetz, Jacqueline Guettler, Berthold Huppertz
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2021-07-01
Series:International Journal of Molecular Sciences
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/22/14/7464
Description
Summary:During pregnancy, freely floating placental villi are adapted to fluid shear stress due to placental perfusion with maternal plasma and blood. In vitro culture of placental villous explants is widely performed under static conditions, hoping the conditions may represent the in utero environment. However, static placental villous explant culture dramatically differs from the in vivo situation. Thus, we established a flow culture system for placental villous explants and compared commonly used static cultured tissue to flow cultured tissue using transmission and scanning electron microscopy, immunohistochemistry, and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) measurements. The data revealed a better structural and biochemical integrity of flow cultured tissue compared to static cultured tissue. Thus, this new flow system can be used to simulate the blood flow from the mother to the placenta and back in the most native-like in vitro system so far and thus can enable novel study designs.
ISSN:1661-6596
1422-0067