Endocrine Abstracts

Equine chorionic gonadotrophin (eCG) is not only essential for the maintenance of early equine pregnancy but is also used therapeutically for synchronisation of farm and laboratory animals. Currently it is extracted from serum of farmed pregnant mares. We have recently reported that under normoxic conditions, BMP4 treatment of equine trophoblast resulted in a dose, and developmental stage-dependent increase in total number of differentiated binucleate cells that secrete eCG. O...

Chorionic Gonadotrophin (CG) is secreted by both horse and human placenta and is critical to maintenance of early pregnancy. Production of CG is dependent on the differentiation of specialised CG-secreting cells, binucleate (horse) and syncytiotrophoblast (human). We recently showed the transcription factor Glial Cells Missing 1 (GCM1) is rapidly induced in vivo during differentiation of equine binucleate trophoblast. Studies in human syncytiotrophoblast have shown cAMP...

Equine Chorionic Gonadotrophin (eCG) is a heterodimeric glycoprotein produced by terminally differentiated, bi/multi-nucleate trophoblast cells in the placenta of horses and humans. It is responsible for the maintenance of early pregnancy via rescue of the corpus luteum and subsequently promotion of progesterone production. The beta subunit of eCG is expressed at levels ten-fold lower than that of the alpha subunit and confers the glycoproteins specificity to the placenta. Ver...

Placental chorionic gonadotrophin (CG) hormone secretion, critical for maintenance of early pregnancy, is dependent on differentiation of specialised CG-secreting binucleate trophoblast (horse) and syncytiotrophoblast (human). The most abundant genes expressed by binucleate cells are the α and β subunits of equine CG. We recently showed the transcription factor glial cells missing 1 (GCM1) is rapidly induced during differentiation of binucleate trophoblast and mRNA e...