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Regulation of placental development and function by ubiquitination

Xue Wang1,2, Xiaoqing Li3, Shanshan Yuan4

  • 1National Clinical Research Center for Child Health, Children's Hospital Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China.

Molecular Medicine (Cambridge, Mass.)
|May 23, 2025
PubMed

The proper distribution of nutrients and metabolites between the mother and fetus is one important factor for successful pregnancy. As a bridge, the placenta plays a key role in sensing the nutritional needs of the fetus, coordinating the maternal nutrition supply, and enhancing its nutritional transport capabilities. Imperfect placental development can lead to pregnancy-related disorders such as preeclampsia, recurrent miscarriage, and/or fetal growth restriction, posing risks to both mother and child in the short and long term. However, current understanding of the human placenta remains as a "black box", and its developmental control mechanisms for adaptive pregnant regulation still needs to be elucidated. As one form of post-translational modification (PTM), ubiquitination plays an important role in regulating cellular functions and is regarded as a valuable drug target. Particularly, ubiquitination related to placenta development has been discovered in recent years. Placental development processes closely associated with pregnant complications, such as blastocyst implantation, syncytiotrophoblast cell differentiation, and immune barrier maintenance, have been reported to be affected by ubiquitination. However, the diagnosis and intervention of pregnancy diseases also urgently need to be improved. Thus, aiming to comprehensive summarize and further exploring the molecular mechanism, target and regulatory mechanism of pregnancy complications, we have herein reviewed genes and pathways regulating pregnancy progress and diseases and focusing on ubiquitin-related physiological process in placenta.

Keywords:
Cellular functionsPlacentaPregnancy diseasesUbiquitination

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