The placenta plays an essential role in fetal growth and pregnancy health. Throughout pregnancy and until birth, the placenta is obligatory for embryonic organogenesis, fetal growth, immunological support, and maintenance of healthy maternal-fetal communication, while preserving maternal health. Centrally positioned to support fetal development, the placenta is a target for diverse intrauterine injuries, spanning epigenetic, genetic, molecular, and acquired perturbations, which impact common, severe diseases of pregnancy, including fetal growth restriction. Moreover, placental stress hormones and sub-chorionic bleeding, both associated with placental dysfunction, are implicated in the pathogenesis of preterm birth. Placental dysfunction leaves its mark on the developing embryo, rendering it vulnerable to a host of childhood and adult diseases. Established histomorphological approaches to characterize placental dysfunction, recently fortified by high throughput analysis of gene expression, define placental injury yet fail to illuminate its metaboli consequences to the fetus. Hence, our ability to infer from static data on tissue morphology and molecular building blocks, and elucidate the dynamic process of placental metabolism, is hampered. This knowledge gap is pertinent to our understanding of placental storage and mobilization of metabolic fuels, which are critical for fetal development. Recognizing these deficiencies, our three laboratories have joined forces to unravel the metabolism of placental fuel stores, their availability to the fetus, and the impact of dysregulated trophoblast storage of caloric nutrients on feto-placental development. Drawing from several discipline-specific perspectives, our team crafted a transdisciplinary initiative that centers on innovative analyses of placental metabolic injury that stems from aberrant molecular, epigenetic (imprinting) and cellular influences, and perturbs placental storage and utilization of caloric nutrients. Our program centers on placental glycogen and lipid depots. We seek to understand (a) the role of imprinting in the metabolic function of the mouse placenta by identifying the functional defects in DNMTIo-deficient placentas, (b) the transcriptional and developmental regulation of placental glycogen stores by the transcriptional regulator PPARY and its transcription cofactor LCoR (Ligand-dependent CoRepressor), and (c) the impact of placental injury on lipid droplet metabolism, Plin family proteins, and trophoblast lipotoxicity. We harness the power of new, rapidly evolving mouse genetic and epigenetic technologies, as well as high throughput genomics and lipidomics analyses, to answer fundamental systems-based questions in placental biology, and offer a novel view on molecular metabolic pathways that underlie a clinical conundrum. Our findings may pave the way to clinical research into disease biomarkers, therapeutics and prevention.

Public Health Relevance

Through a new transdisciplinary research program we seek to bridge major knowledge gaps in our understanding of placental fuel storage and metabolism. These processes play a pivotal role in the regulation of fetal growth, and therefore impact the risk of stillbirths, neonatal and childhood disease, and adult obesity.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Program Projects (P01)
Project #
5P01HD069316-03
Application #
8643807
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZHD1-DSR-Z (52))
Program Officer
Higgins, Rosemary
Project Start
2012-06-15
Project End
2017-02-28
Budget Start
2014-03-01
Budget End
2015-02-28
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2014
Total Cost
$998,898
Indirect Cost
$127,375
Name
Magee-Women's Research Institute and Foundation
Department
Type
DUNS #
119132785
City
Pittsburgh
State
PA
Country
United States
Zip Code
15213
Bildirici, Ibrahim; Schaiff, W Timothy; Chen, Baosheng et al. (2018) PLIN2 Is Essential for Trophoblastic Lipid Droplet Accumulation and Cell Survival During Hypoxia. Endocrinology 159:3937-3949
Shalom-Barak, Tali; Liersemann, Jaclyn; Memari, Babak et al. (2018) Ligand-Dependent Corepressor (LCoR) Is a Rexinoid-Inhibited Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor ?-Retinoid X Receptor ? Coactivator. Mol Cell Biol 38:
Lee, Sungeun; Pallerla, Srinivas R; Kim, Suyeon et al. (2016) Esrrb-Cre excises loxP-flanked alleles in early four-cell embryos. Genesis 54:53-61
Ouyang, Yingshi; Bayer, Avraham; Chu, Tianjiao et al. (2016) Isolation of human trophoblastic extracellular vesicles and characterization of their cargo and antiviral activity. Placenta 47:86-95
Mishima, Takuya; Sadovsky, Elena; Gegick, Margaret E et al. (2016) Determinants of effective lentivirus-driven microRNA expression in vivo. Sci Rep 6:33345
Himes, K P; Young, A; Koppes, E et al. (2015) Loss of inherited genomic imprints in mice leads to severe disruption in placental lipid metabolism. Placenta 36:389-96
Shaffer, Ben; McGraw, Serge; Xiao, Siyu C et al. (2015) The DNMT1 intrinsically disordered domain regulates genomic methylation during development. Genetics 199:533-41
Koppes, Erik; Himes, Katherine P; Chaillet, J Richard (2015) Partial Loss of Genomic Imprinting Reveals Important Roles for Kcnq1 and Peg10 Imprinted Domains in Placental Development. PLoS One 10:e0135202
Larkin, J C; Sears, S B; Sadovsky, Y (2014) The influence of ligand-activated LXR on primary human trophoblasts. Placenta 35:919-24
Mohammadyani, Dariush; Tyurin, Vladimir A; O'Brien, Matthew et al. (2014) Molecular speciation and dynamics of oxidized triacylglycerols in lipid droplets: Mass spectrometry and coarse-grained simulations. Free Radic Biol Med 76:53-60

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