Utero-placental expression of angiotensin-(1–7) and ACE2 in the pregnant guinea-pig

Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology

Research

Daniela Schneider¹  Jenny Corthorn¹  Gloria Valdés¹  K Bridget Brosnihan²  JaNae Joyner²  Manish S Bharadwaj² 

[1] Centro de Investigaciones Médicas y Departamento de Nefrología, Escuela de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica, Santiago, Chile;Hypertension and Vascular Research Center, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC, USA;

关键词: Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor;    Decidual Cell;    Trophoblast Invasion;    Placenta Accreta;    Extravillous Trophoblast;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1477-7827-11-5

 received in 2012-09-07, accepted in 2013-01-14,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundIn humans, trophoblast invasion, vascular remodeling and placental development are critical to determine the fate of pregnancy. Since guinea-pigs (GP) and humans share common pregnancy features including extensive trophoblast invasion, transformation of the uterine spiral arteries and a haemomonochorial placenta, the GP animal model was deemed suitable to extend our knowledge on the spatio-temporal immunoreactive expression of the vasodilator arpeptide of the renin-angiotensin system, angiotensin-(1–7) [Ang-(1–7)] and its main generating enzyme, angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2).MethodsUtero-placental units were collected in days 15, 20, 40 and 60 of a 64–67 day long pregnancy in 25 Pirbright GP. Ang-(1–7) and ACE2 expression in utero-placental units were evaluated by immunohistochemistry.ResultsAng-(1–7) and ACE2 were detected in the endothelium and syncytiotrophoblast of the labyrinthine placenta, interlobium, subplacenta, giant cells, syncytial sprouts, syncytial streamers, and myometrium throughout pregnancy. In late pregnancy, perivascular or intramural trophoblasts in spiral and mesometrial arteries expressed both factors. Immunoreactive Ang-(1–7) and ACE2 were present in decidua and in the vascular smooth muscle of spiral, myometrial and mesometrial arteries, which also express kallikrein (Kal), the bradykinin receptor 2 (B2R), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its type 2 receptor (KDR), but no endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS). In addition, the signal of Ang-(1–7) and ACE2 was especially remarkable in giant cells, which also show Kal, B2R. eNOS, VEGF and KDR.ConclusionsThe spatio-temporal expression of Ang-(1–7) and ACE2 in GP, similar to that of humans, supports a relevant evolutionary conserved function of Ang-(1–7) and ACE2 in decidualization, trophoblast invasion, vascular remodeling and placental flow regulation, as well as the validity of the GP model to understand the local adaptations of pregnancy. It also integrates Ang-(1–7) to the utero-placental vasodilatory network. However, its antiangiogenic effect may counterbalance the proangiogenic activity of some of the other vasodilator components.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Valdes et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.