Gene expression profiles of bovine uninucleate trophoblast cells and trophoblast giant cells: a data note

In the bovine placenta, intimate fetomaternal contact is restricted to placentomes. Within the placentomes fetal chorionic villi interdigitate with corresponding maternal caruncular crypts. The trophoblast epithelium covering the chorionic villi consists of 80% uninucleate trophoblast cells (UTCs) and 20% trophoblast giant cells (TGCs). TGCs migrate toward the endometrium and fuse with endometrial cells to form short-lived fetomaternal hybrid cells. Thereby the TGCs transport molecules of fetal origin across the placental barrier into the maternal compartment. The UTC/TGC ratio is constant during pregnancy because UTCs can differentiate into new TGCs to replace spent TGCs. However, our understanding of this differentiation process was sparse. Therefore, we collected the data to study the gene expression profiles in UTCs and TGCs and to identify differently expressed genes between the two trophoblast cell populations. Using Gene Ontology analysis, we wanted to identify biological processes and pathways that play an important role in the differentiation of UTCs into TGCs.

Bovine placentas were from days 118 to 130 of gestation. We obtained virtually pure UTCs and TGCs using a fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) method. Total RNA was extracted from the UTC and TGC isolates, labeled and hybridized to Affymetrix Bovine Gene 1.0 ST Arrays.