Characterization of the porcine maternal-embryonic interface and its role in embryonic development.

产前死亡率是所有哺乳动物物种中一个普遍而重要的问题。猪是一种极好的动物模型，因为25-30%的发育胚胎在着床前或着床过程中丢失。胚胎死亡的确切机制尚不清楚，但假设是由于母体环境和胚胎之间的功能障碍或沟通不畅。尽管输卵管和子宫在早期胚胎发育中起着核心作用，但猪胚胎所暴露的实际输卵管和子宫微环境本质上是没有特征的。尽管胚胎的环境对动物的产前发育和长期健康有着至关重要的影响，但目前尚不清楚环境如何改变胚胎表达的基因并对后代产生显著影响。直到最近，这一智力瓶颈主要是由于从这些微小的胚胎组织中收集到的材料数量有限，以及缺乏适当的研究技术来在分子水平上有效地研究这些极端特化的细胞类型。然而，应用基因组学和蛋白质组学技术的最新进展将允许在胚胎着床前分析胚胎与其母体环境之间的信号。这些分析将促进我们对可存活胚胎发育的关键步骤的基本理解，并提供胚胎微环境如何影响这些过程的见解。这项研究将导致鉴定大量与猪母胚相互作用有关的候选基因和基因产物，并将对基础科学、母系管理和生物技术产生影响。这一知识将有利于加拿大，因为它将用于提高猪等经济上重要物种的繁殖效率，并将解决母胚胎交流如何影响人类健康的问题。

Prenatal mortality is a common and significant problem in all mammalian species. The pig is an excellent animal model because between 25-30% of developing embryos are lost prior to or during implantation. The exact mechanisms of embryonic death are poorly understood, but are hypothesized to be due to malfunction or miscommunication between the maternal environment and embryo. Although the oviduct and uterus play a central role in early embryonic development, the actual oviductal and uterine microenvironments that pig embryos are exposed are essentially uncharacterized. Despite the fact that the embryo's environment has a critical impact on prenatal development and the long-term health of the animal, it is unclear how the environment alters the genes expressed by an embryo and produces remarkable effects on the offspring. Until recently, this intellectual bottleneck has been caused primarily by the limited amount of material that can be gathered from these minute embryonic tissues and the lack of appropriate research techniques to efficiently study these extremely specialized cell types at a molecular level. However, application of recent advances in genomic and proteomic technologies will allow for analysis of the signaling between an embryo and its maternal environment before implantation. These analyses will advance our fundamental understanding of the critical steps involved in the development of a viable embryo, and provide insight into how the microenvironment of the embryo affects these processes. This research will result in the identification of a multitude of candidate genes and gene products which are involved in the maternal-embryo interactions of the pig and will have implications for basic science, maternal management and biotechnology. This knowledge will be beneficial to Canada as it will be used to improve the reproductive efficiency of economically important species, such as swine, and will also address how maternal embryo communication can influence human health.