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siRNA Transfection and EMSA Analyses on Freshly Isolated Human Villous Cytotrophoblasts
09:57

siRNA Transfection and EMSA Analyses on Freshly Isolated Human Villous Cytotrophoblasts

Published on: September 20, 2016

Human endogenous retrovirus-W envelope (syncytin) is expressed in both villous and extravillous trophoblast

A Muir1, A M L Lever2, A Moffett1

  • 1Research Group in Human Reproductive Immunobiology, Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge, Tennis Court Road, Cambridge CB2 1QP, UK.

The Journal of General Virology
|June 9, 2006
PubMed

The placenta is unique amongst normal tissues in transcribing numerous different human endogenous retroviruses at high levels. In this study, RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry were used to investigate the expression of syncytin in human trophoblast. Syncytin transcripts were found in first-trimester trophoblast cells with both villous and extravillous phenotypes and also in the JAR and JEG-3 choriocarcinoma cell lines. Syncytin protein was detected in villous trophoblast and in all extravillous trophoblast subpopulations of first- and second-trimester placental tissues. It was also present in ectopic trophoblast from tubal implantations. This study confirms that syncytin is expressed widely by a variety of normal human trophoblast populations, as well as choriocarcinoma cell lines.

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