Discipline: Biological Sciences
Subcategory: Cell and Molecular Biology
Session: 2
Ikram Mohamed - University of Missouri
Co-Author(s): Charlotte L. Phillips, Laura C. Schulz, Jenna DeCata, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri
The placenta is the organ responsible for the exchange of nutrients from the mother to the fetus to support growth. The placenta consists of the junctional zone that transports maternal blood to the labyrinth zone in which exchange of nutrients and oxygen occur between blood spaces. Previously, we have shown that a maternal factor called myostatin changes fetal growth without actually contacting the fetus, suggesting that removing this factor alters the development of the placenta to make it more efficient at supporting fetal growth. My goal is to determine whether this inhibition affects the development of the placenta to make it more efficient. Placentas were collected from two mice treated with an inhibiting antibody to block myostatin in the maternal blood, and two mice treated with a control antibody, from days 2.5-17.5 of pregnancy. I photographed and measured the cross-sectional areas of the junctional and labyrinth zones by using a tiling microscope and ImageJ software. In pregnant mice treated with the inhibiting antibody, there was a larger variance in the areas of the junctional and labyrinth zones than in the controls. There was no significant difference in junctional and labyrinth zone areas based on the antibody treatment. There was some evidence of increased labyrinth zone area in the inhibiting antibody-treated mice compared to controls, but it was not statistically significant. The ratio of the junctional to the labyrinth zone was not affected by the antibody treatment. In the future, we plan to measure maternal and fetal blood spaces in the labyrinth zone. We hope to use this approach to insure the placenta is efficient, to allow both mother and child to have the healthiest pregnancy possible.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): March of Dimes, Missouri Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, Sears trust and the Intercampus Interdisciplinary and Mission Enhancement
Faculty Advisor: Laura C. Schulz, schulzl@health.missouri.edu
Role: In this observational research study, I was given cross-sectional slides of wildtype pregnant mice placenta at the embryonic day of 17.5. The placentas were randomly chosen on the slides of the total of placentas from the pups from both myostatin antibody treated and control. The images were photographed on a Nikon image-tiling microscope of the total placentas that were chosen. I measured the two major zones of the placenta through software called ImageJ. The results of the data were analyzed through excel, of the measurements from ImageJ of the control and myostatin antibody treated. The data was graphed on the software Graph Prism to illustrate the differences of both zones.