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Mechanisms for establishment of the placental defensive barrier

ZHENG Wan-Shan^1,2, HU Xiao-Qian³, WANG Yan-Ling⁴, CAO Bin^1,*

¹School of Medicine, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, China；²Guangzhou Institute of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, the Third Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou 510150, China；³School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, China；⁴State Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Reproductive Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China

Abstract

Placenta serves as a temporary fetal organ, which mediates maternal-fetal crosstalk and intrauterine fetal growth. Placental defensive barrier is a fundamental physiological function, which balances maternal immune tolerance to the fetus and resistance to pathogens. This review summarizes the latest research progress on the mechanisms of placental barrier formation from the view of placental development. Recent discoveries have shed light on the cellular and molecular properties of placental defensive mechanisms in syncytiotrophoblast, including autophagy, exosome mediated anti-pathogenic pathways, cell-cell junctions and cytoskeleton networks. We also present an overview of placental barrier dysfunction and its implications in intrauterine TORCH infections.

Key words: Placental barrier; trophoblast; intrauterine infection; TORCH

Received: 2019-07-15　　Accepted: 2019-09-22

Corresponding author: 曹彬　　E-mail: caobin19@xmu.edu.cn

DOI: 10.13294/j.aps.2020.0006

Citing This Article：

ZHENG Wan-Shan, HU Xiao-Qian, WANG Yan-Ling, CAO Bin. Mechanisms for establishment of the placental defensive barrier. Acta Physiol Sin 2020; 72 (1): 115-124 (in Chinese with English abstract).