The trophoblast transcription factor glial cell missing-1 (GCM1) regulates asymmetric division of placental cytotrophoblast to form the differentiated syncytiotrophoblast. Reduced GCM1 expression is a key feature of the hypertensive disorder preeclampsia. In-silico techniques identified a novel calcium-dependent transcriptional repressor – DREAM as a regulatory candidate for GCM1. The overall objective of this thesis was to determine if DREAM regulates GCM1 expression and therefore villous trophoblast turnover. siRNA-mediated DREAM silencing in both BeWo cells and floating villous explants significantly upregulated GCM1 causing reduced cytotrophoblast proliferation. Calcium-dependency was demonstrated in both BeWo cells and floating villous explants by contrasting the effects of ionomycin and nimodipine. A direct interaction between DREAM and the GCM1 promoter was demonstrated using EMSA and ChIP assay. DREAM is a negative upstream regulator of GCM1 expression in human placenta that participates in calcium-dependent trophoblast differentiation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/24234 |
| Date | 05 April 2010 |
| Creators | Baczyk, Dorota |
| Contributors | Lye, Stephen J. |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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