News

Roger Short, one of the giants of the field of reproductive biology has sadly passed away

12 August 2021

roger_short_2.jpg Image credit: The History of Modern Biomedicine It is with great sadness that we hear of the passing of Roger Short, one of the giants of the field of reproductive biology. Roger’s research interests were broad, but notably he pioneered assays for measuring sex steroids and elucidated their effects on...

Variably methylated retrotransposons are refractory to a range of environmental perturbations

2 August 2021

Tessa M. Bertozzi, Jessica L. Becker, Georgina E. T. Blake, Amita Bansal, Duy K. Nguyen, Denise S. Fernandez-Twinn, Susan E. Ozanne, Marisa S. Bartolomei, Rebecca A. Simmons, Erica D. Watson and Anne C. Ferguson-Smith The agouti viable yellow (Avy) allele is an insertional mutation in the mouse genome caused by a variably...

Placental mitochondrial function, nutrient transporters, metabolic signalling and steroid metabolism relate to fetal size and sex in mice

26 July 2021

Esteban Salazar-Petres, Daniela Pereira Carvalho, Jorge Lopez-Tello, Amanda Nancy Sferruzzi-Perri Abstract Fetal growth depends on placental function, which requires energy supplied by mitochondria. Here we investigated whether mitochondrial function in the placenta relates to growth of the lightest and heaviest fetuses of...

Maternal microbiota Bifidobacterium promotes placental vascularization, nutrient transport and fetal growth in mice

26 July 2021

Jorge Lopez-Tello, Zoe Schofield, Raymond Kiu, Matthew J. Dalby, Douwe van Sinderen, Gwnaelle Le Gall, Amanda N Sferruzzi-Perri, Lindsay J Hall Abstract The gut microbiota plays a central role in regulating host metabolism. However, while substantial progress has been made in discerning how the microbiota influences host...

BAP1/ASXL complex modulation regulates epithelial-mesenchymal transition during trophoblast differentiation and invasion

28 June 2021

Vicente Perez-Garcia, Georgia Lea, Pablo Lopez-Jimenez, Hanneke Okkenhaug, Graham J Burton, Ashley Moffett, Margherita Y Turco, Myriam Hemberger Abstract Normal function of the placenta depends on the earliest developmental stages when trophoblast cells differentiate and invade into the endometrium to establish the...

Study identifies trigger for ‘head-to-tail’ axis development in human embryo

21 June 2021

Scientists have identified key molecular events in the developing human embryo between days 7 and 14 - one of the most mysterious, yet critical, stages of our development. The second week of gestation represents a critical stage of embryo development, or embryogenesis. Failure of development during this time is one of the...

Menstrual flow as a non-invasive source of endometrial organoids

21 June 2021

Tereza Cindrova-Davies, Xiaohui Zhao, Kay Elder, Carolyn J. P. Jones, Ashley Moffett, Graham J. Burton & Margherita Y. Turco Abstract Assessment of the endometrium often necessitates a biopsy, which currently involves an invasive, transcervical procedure. Here, we present an alternative technique based on deriving...

Defective folate metabolism causes germline epigenetic instability and distinguishes Hira as a phenotype inheritance biomarker

17 June 2021

Georgina E. T. Blake, Xiaohui Zhao, Hong wa Yung, Graham J. Burton, Anne C. Ferguson-Smith, Russell S. Hamilton & Erica D. Watson Abstract The mechanism behind transgenerational epigenetic inheritance is unclear, particularly through the maternal grandparental line. We previously showed that disruption of folate...

The RNA landscape of the human placenta in health and disease paper has been selected by the editors of Nat Comms to be highlighted as among the best 50 papers in the area

16 June 2021

The editors at Nature Communications have put together an Editors’ Highlights webpage of recent research called “Genetics, genomics and epigenetics” and have featured the article entitled “The RNA landscape of the human placenta in health and disease”. The Editors’ Highlights pages aim to showcase the 50 best papers...

Disruption of folate metabolism causes poor alignment and spacing of mouse conceptuses for multiple generations

14 June 2021

Amy L Wilkinson, Katerina Menelaou, Joanna Rakoczy, Xiu S Tan, Erica D Watson Abstract Abnormal uptake or metabolism of folate increases risk of human pregnancy complications, though the mechanism is unclear. Here, we explore how defective folate metabolism influences early development by analysing mice with an Mtrrgt...