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BORROWED GENES. "About 3000 genes are specifically expressed in eutherian placentas, associated with gene duplications, specifically expressed genes, and a high percentage of retroviral genes adapted for placental functions." https://lnkd.in/edVs2NW View in LinkedIn

ANTI-VIRAL. "Expressed HERVs may block infectious retroviruses, thus protecting the growing fetus from exogenous retroviruses that could possibly be transferred from the maternal blood." https://lnkd.in/bNEJmbG View in LinkedIn

PLACENTAL PLASTICITY. "The placental system and the fetal membranes evolved an astonishing complexity and diversity following the radiation of placental mammals. This plasticity may have been driven by evolutionary intraspecies tensions between the mother and the fetus and the involved genes. Likely, such tensions resulted in a field of opposing processes between the parent and offspring." https://lnkd.in/edVs2NW View in LinkedIn

SELF/NON-SELF. "Another postulated beneficial role of HERV-encoded Env proteins is their involvement in suppressing possible maternal immunological reactions against the fetus based on the immunosuppressive activity characteristic of retroviral Env proteins." http://jvi.asm.org/content/79/1/341.full View in LinkedIn

UNIQUE CHALLENGE. "The overall placental structure mediates immune challenges found in no other organ of the body, as it involves two genetically distinct organisms: mother (decidua) and fetus (placental trophoblast)." https://lnkd.in/eN_bZTg View in LinkedIn

HOW CAN IT BE? "Could it be that placental evolution - and indeed mammalian evolution - finds its origins in the doings of a virus?" https://lnkd.in/eRQwBvJ View in LinkedIn

HYBRID FETUS. "The fetus will express both maternal and paternal proteins. While the former will be tolerated by the mother’s immune system, the latter will be recognized as invasive. It is the placenta that protects the fetus from attack by the mother’s immune system." https://lnkd.in/e6q2jTP View in LinkedIn

KEY VIRAL GENE. "Who would have thought that a virus could have anything to do with a tissue as important to life, and its development, as the placenta? A viral protein, now known as syncytin, whose gene was probably integrated into the primate genome over 25 millions years ago, is hugely expressed in placental tissue - especially at the beginning of embryonic development - and is giving signs of bearing an essential role in placental architecture." https://lnkd.in/eRQwBvJ View in LinkedIn

EUTHERIA, PLACENTAL MAMMALS. "Placental mammals all bear live young, which are nourished before birth in the mother's uterus through a specialized embryonic organ attached to the uterus wall, the placenta." https://lnkd.in/e3Zwz2F View in LinkedIn

BUDDING PARTICLES. "Electron micrographs of placental tissue from humans and a variety of other animals showed retrovirus-like particles budding from placental cells, particularly within the syncytiotrophoblast layer — the layer consisting of fused cells." https://lnkd.in/e6q2jTP View in LinkedIn