A team of researchers has developed through bioengineering a model of the endometrium with which to study processes as important as they are unknown to science: the implantation of an embryo, on which it depends whether the pregnancy continues or not, and the first communication with the mother. The Cell journal describes this Tuesday in a scientific article how the first artificial uterine lining capable of responding to the implantation of an embryo has been designed in the same way as the woman’s endometrium in a pregnancy, producing the essential mechanisms to ‘nourish’ it. The work is the result of the collaboration of scientists from the Babraham Institute of Cambridge (United Kingdom) and Stanford University in the United States. The developing embryo implants in the lining of the uterus (endometrium) one week after fertilization, and there begins one of the least known stages by science due to the difficulty of observing the embryo during and after implantation. “Understanding embryo implantation and its development right after is of great clinical relevance, as these stages are especially prone to failure, especially in in vitro fertilization processes,” explains one of the authors, Peter Rugg-Gunn, a researcher at the Babraham Institute.
The Engineering Behind the Artificial Endometrium
To achieve this understanding, Rugg-Gunn and his team have managed to replicate in three dimensions (3D) the complex physiological properties and cellular composition of the uterine lining. Scientists isolated two essential cell types from endometrial tissue donated by healthy individuals who had undergone biopsies to artificially recreate that tissue: epithelial and stromal cells. At the same time, they used information from the donated tissue to identify the key components that give structure to the uterine lining. The researchers were able to incorporate these components, along with stromal cells, into a special type of gel to promote cell growth in a thick layer. Subsequently, they added epithelial cells that spread over the surface of the stromal cells.The team tested its model using early-stage human embryos, donated by people who had undergone in vitro fertilization processes, and found that the embryo went through the expected stages of adhesion and implantation in the artificial endometrium. After implantation, the embryos increased the secretion of certain proteins specific to pregnancy and human chorionic gonadotropin, which is used in pregnancy detection tests.The artificial endometrium achieved the same cellular architecture as the donated tissue and gave the same response to hormonal stimulation, which indicated that it could be receptive to the implantation of an embryo, the authors explain.
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