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Updated: Mar 22, 2026

Transcriptional Analysis by Nascent RNA FISH of In Vivo Trophoblast Giant Cells or In Vitro Short-term Cultures of Ectoplacental Cone Explants
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Published on: August 31, 2016

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Single-cell RNA-seq reveals cell type-specific transcriptional signatures at the maternal-foetal interface during

Andrew C Nelson1, Arne W Mould1, Elizabeth K Bikoff1

  • 1Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3RE, UK.

Nature Communications
|April 26, 2016
PubMed

Growth and survival of the mammalian embryo within the uterine environment depends on the placenta, a highly complex vascularized organ comprised of both maternal and foetal tissues. Recent experiments demonstrate that the zinc finger transcriptional repressor Prdm1/Blimp1 is essential for specification of spiral artery trophoblast giant cells (SpA-TGCs) that invade and remodel maternal blood vessels. To learn more about functional contributions made by Blimp1+ cell lineages here we perform the first single-cell RNA-seq analysis of the placenta. Cell types of both foetal and maternal origin are profiled. Comparisons with microarray datasets from mutant placenta and in vitro differentiated trophoblast stem cells allow us to identify Blimp1-dependent transcripts enriched in SpA-TGCs. Our experiments provide new insights into the functionally distinct cell types present at the maternal-foetal interface and advance our knowledge of dynamic gene expression patterns controlling placental morphogenesis and vascular mimicry.

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