Current Understanding of Autophagy in Pregnancy

Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved process in eukaryotes to maintain cellular homeostasis under environmental stress. Intracellular control is exerted to produce energy or maintain intracellular protein quality controls. Autophagy plays an important role in embryogenesis, implantation, and mai...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of molecular sciences 2019-05, Vol.20 (9), p.2342
Main Authors: Nakashima, Akitoshi, Tsuda, Sayaka, Kusabiraki, Tae, Aoki, Aiko, Ushijima, Akemi, Shima, Tomoko, Cheng, Shi-Bin, Sharma, Surendra, Saito, Shigeru
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activation
Aging
Animals
Autophagy
Autophagy - genetics
Cell number
Embryos
Endoplasmic reticulum
Female
Humans
Hypertension
Hypoxia
Kinases
Life span
Lysosomes
Mammals
Mitochondria
Models, Biological
Phagocytosis
Physiological effects
Physiology
Placentation
Preeclampsia
Pregnancy
Pregnancy Complications - pathology
Proteins
Reproduction
Review
Sperm
TOR protein
Trophectoderm
Trophoblasts
Zygotes
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Summary:Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved process in eukaryotes to maintain cellular homeostasis under environmental stress. Intracellular control is exerted to produce energy or maintain intracellular protein quality controls. Autophagy plays an important role in embryogenesis, implantation, and maintenance of pregnancy. This role includes supporting extravillous trophoblasts (EVTs) that invade the decidua (endometrium) until the first third of uterine myometrium and migrate along the lumina of spiral arterioles under hypoxic and low-nutrient conditions in early pregnancy. In addition, autophagy inhibition has been linked to poor placentation-a feature of preeclamptic placentas-in a placenta-specific autophagy knockout mouse model. Studies of autophagy in human placentas have revealed controversial results, especially with regard to preeclampsia and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Without precise estimation of autophagy flux, wrong interpretation would lead to fixed tissues. This paper presents a review of the role of autophagy in pregnancy and elaborates on the interpretation of autophagy in human placental tissues.
ISSN:1422-0067
1661-6596
1422-0067
DOI:10.3390/ijms20092342