This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

The placenta, the temporary organ that forms during pregnancy to carry oxygen and nutrients from mother to baby, is vital to healthy gestation, yet it remains understudied. While its function and purpose are well established, far less is known about what problems can occur there and their impacts on mother and child.

"What is it about the placenta that has to go right for the baby's development, and what are the things that keep it going on a healthy trajectory?" said John Chappell, associate professor at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC. As a vascular biologist, Chappell's investigation focuses on blood vessel development.

Chappell and his team have identified a protein not previously found in the placenta that plays a role in infant vascular development and potentially affects maternal health. Their discovery is described in an article published in Angiogenesis.

"This new finding gives us baseline levels of this protein in a healthy, developing placenta," said Audra Barnes-Lanier, a former graduate research assistant in Chappell's lab and the paper's first author. "We found that it is oxygen sensitive and may potentially serve as a new therapeutic target for pregnancy disorders such as preeclampsia."

The discovery challenges the established belief that the protein—soluble platelet-derived growth factor receptor beta, or sR-beta—is merely a biomarker of pericyte cell death in the brain.

Chappell's research found the protein isn't just present during pericyte death, but during vascular development, as well.

Source link