There’s Hope! A New Way To Prevent Miscarriages
One of the leading causes of miscarriage is a problematic placenta, a temporary organ that develops in a woman’s uterus for the duration of her pregnancy to provide nutrition to the developing baby. The placenta is a critical link between the mother and her baby. In addition to providing nourishment and immunity to the fetus, it also secretes hormones that are necessary to maintain the pregnancy.
Research in the quickly expanding field of regenerative medicine offers new hope to women with placental problems resulting in repeated pregnancy loss. Based on the premise that damaged tissues and organs in the human body can be replaced with cellular transplantation, this relatively new field in medicine aims to treat an assortment of ailments.
Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have had recent success in converting skin cells into fully functional cells capable of generating a placenta, a discovery that holds great promise. Dr. Yosef Buganim and colleagues in the Faculty of Medicine at The Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada studied placental development genes in mouse models to better understand the process. Three genes—Tfap2c, Gata3, and Eomes—were identified as being capable of initiating a program that can completely alter the fate of skin cells and convert them into fully functional, stable placenta-creating cells known as trophoblast stem cells (TSCs).
The 2006 work of Japanese scientists Kazutoshi Takahashi and Shinya Yamanaka laid the groundwork for this pioneering research. By demonstrating that altering only four genes can reprogram adult cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) capable of developing into other cell types, the scientists overcame two major hurdles in regenerative medicine: the ethical issues associated with the use of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and the immune-mediated rejection of cells derived from ESCs by the recipient’s body.
The placenta remains one of the least understood organs in the human body, and treatment options for placental insufficiency leading to recurrent miscarriages are limited. Scientists have been unsuccessful in isolating and propagating placental precursor cells in the laboratory. The ability to generate a placenta is, therefore, of great interest and has extensive potential in treating birth defects, intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR), low birth weight, and premature births in women with an improper or incomplete developing placenta.
Following their initial success with coaxing mouse fibroblasts to convert to trophoblast stem cells, Buganim and his colleagues will now focus their attention on applying this technology to create functional TSCs in humans, giving women who have endured recurrent miscarriages due to placental problems a real chance of carrying a healthy baby to term.
References:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151014110404.htm
https://www.verywell.com/placenta-problems-and-miscarriage-or-stillbirth-2371585
