We all know that girls and boys are different – but what you might not know is that the placenta of a female baby is different to the placenta of a male baby.
In a recent study in the spiny mouse – a mouse that looks and develops quite differently to the ‘normal’ mouse, it was found that female placentas and male placentas are different in terms of how the placenta looks and the genes that are expressed in the placenta. Not only this, but when we mildly stressed the pregnant mother (we gave the mother a man-made form of her natural stress hormone), the placenta of a female fetus responded to the stress differently to the placenta of a male fetus.
What were some of the differences?
Placentas collected from stress-free mothers were different between the sexes in terms of how much of the mothers’ blood was able to enter/exit the placenta and the expression of a gene (Insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor) important in the growth of the baby and the placenta.
Placentas collected from stressed mothers, were different between the sexes depending on how long after the stress we examined the placenta. For example very soon after we stopped stressing the mother, the structure and gene expression in the placenta was similar between males and females (although very different from non-stressed placentas), but when we examined the placenta 2 weeks after we stopped stressing the mother, the placenta was different for a male and female baby. One such difference was in the expression of the glucose transporter in the placenta. Glucose is very important for the functioning of the placenta and for the growth and development of the baby and we found that after stress, the placenta of a male baby had lower expression of the glucose transporter in the placenta compared to the placenta of a female baby.
What does this mean?
Honestly, we don’t really know what this all means, but we aren’t the first researchers to identify differences in placental structure between the sexes – the differences have even been seen in humans.
This area of research has many more questions to answer and one of the most important questions this study raises is, if a mother gets stressed during pregnancy, should the recommended treatment depend on whether she is carrying a male or female baby?
Read the full article here - http://www.biolreprod.org/cgi/content/abstract/biolreprod.111.093369
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