Abstract
In early pregnancy, as the embryo arrives in the uterus, intensive communication between the embryo and uterus begins. Hundreds of molecules are known to be involved, but despite numerous findings, full understanding of the complexity of the embryo–maternal dialog remains elusive. Recently, extracellular vesicles, nanoparticles able to transfer functionally active cargo between cells, have emerged as important players in cell–cell communication, and as such, they have gained great attention over the past decade also in reproductive biology. Here, we use a domestic animal model (Sus scrofa) with an epitheliochorial, superficial type of placentation because of its advantage in studding uterine luminal fluid extracellular vesicles. We show that during early pregnancy, the uterine lumen is abundant with extracellular vesicles that carry a plethora of miRNAs able to target genes involved in embryonic and organismal development. These extracellular vesicles, upon the delivery to primary trophoblast cells, affect genes governing development as well as cell-to-cell signaling and interactions, consequently having an impact on trophoblast cell proliferation, migration, and invasion. We conclude that the exchange of a unique population of extracellular vesicles and their molecular cargo at the maternal–embryo interface is the key to the success of embryo implantation and pregnancy.
Original language | American English |
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Article number | e22450 |
Journal | FASEB Journal |
Volume | 36 |
Issue number | 8 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Aug 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors are grateful to Dr. A. Nitkiewicz, Dr. K. Witek, M. Guzewska, K. Drzewiecka, M. Romaniewicz, P. Golder, M. Sikora, and K. Gromadzka-Hliwa from the Institute of Animal Reproduction and Food Research, Polish Academy of Science for their excellent technical assistance laboratory; Dr. E. Karnas, from the Laboratory of Stem Cell Biotechnology, Malopolska Centre of Biotechnology, Jagiellonian University for performing Nanoparticle Tracking Analyses; M. Angenitzki from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem for invaluable help with electron microscopy imaging. The cost of open access publication was covered by the society for biology of reproduction in Poland.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors. The FASEB Journal published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.
Keywords
- embryo
- extracellular vesicles
- implantation
- invasion
- miRNA
- migration
- pregnancy
- proliferation
- transcriptome
- trophoblast