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

在所有哺乳动物物种中，产前死亡是一个普遍而重要的问题。猪是一个很好的动物模型，因为25%-30%的发育中胚胎在植入之前或期间丢失。胚胎死亡的确切机制尚不清楚，但被认为是由于母体环境和胚胎之间的故障或沟通不畅所致。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基本上是没有特征的。尽管胚胎的环境对产前发育和动物的长期健康有关键影响，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，这种智力瓶颈主要是由于可以从这些微小的胚胎组织中收集的材料数量有限，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其专业化的细胞类型。然而，基因组和蛋白质组技术的最新进展的应用将允许在植入前分析胚胎与其母体环境之间的信号传递。这些分析将促进我们对可存活胚胎发育过程中关键步骤的基本理解，并提供对胚胎微环境如何影响这些过程的洞察。这项研究将导致识别出一系列与猪的母体-胚胎相互作用有关的候选基因和基因产物，并将对基础科学、母体管理和生物技术产生影响。这一知识将对加拿大有利，因为它将用于提高猪等经济重要物种的繁殖效率，并将解决母体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.