Cell type and cell signalling innovations underlying mammalian pregnancy.

ABSTRACT: How fetal and maternal cell types have co-evolved to enable mammalian placentation poses a unique evolutionary puzzle. Here we integrate and compare single-cell transcriptomes from six species bracketing therian mammal diversity: opossum (a marsupial), Malagasy common tenrec (an afrotherian), mouse and guinea pig (rodents), and macaque and human (primates). We identify a conserved transcriptomic signature of invasive trophoblast across eutherians, probably representing a cell type family that radiated with the evolution of haemochorial placentation. In the maternal stroma, comparative analysis reveals that the endocrine decidual cell evolved from an immunomodulatory predecidual cell type retained in Tenrec and resembling early human decidua. Fetal and maternal cell signalling shows a prono

SUBMITTER: Stadtmauer DJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12328210 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature