Placental diseases and experimental approaches to placental pathophysiology

摘要

There is amazing structural diversity and dramatic functional complexity in mammalian placentation. Although embryologists, developmental biologists, and fetal physiologists have explored basic structural-functional relationships between the maternal, placental and fetal systems for many decades, experimental placental pathophysiology has recently come to the fore with the development of sophisticated cell culture and imaging systems, surgical techniques, and fetal monitoring systems (Block '89, Docherty '01, Lankupalle '02, Schlafer '94). Our current knowledge of placental function, placental pathology and the consequences of placental insult is based on a combination of observational information from naturally occurring conditions and from moreprecise experimental studies. Additionally, the long term impacts that abnormal challenges during the fetal period have been shown by epidemiological studies to have on adult life (termed "the Barker hyothesis") will be discussed (Barker '98, Pardi '02,Godfrey '02). This presentation will address the types of placental changes found in commonly occurring placental diseases of domestic animals and give a brief overview of experimental methods for study of placental pathophysiology.