ArticleBiology letters2024
Convergently evolved placental villi show multiscale structural adaptations to differential placental invasiveness.
Article in Biology letters, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- Placental crises: disruptive selection and maternal under-investment as the foundations of mammalian placental evolution and dysfunction.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Review
- Placental adaptation to maternal environment in domestic animals.The Journal of reproduction and development · 2026Review
- Convergently evolved placental villi show multiscale structural adaptations to differential placental invasiveness.Biology letters · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
17 authors at 5 institutions in 3 countries.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Despite having a single evolutionary origin and conserved function, the mammalian placenta exhibits radical structural diversity. The evolutionary drivers and functional consequences of placental structural diversity are poorly understood. Humans and equids both display treelike placental villi, however these villi evolved independently and exhibit starkly different levels of invasiveness into maternal tissue (i.e. the number of maternal tissue layers between placental tissue and maternal blood). The villi in these species therefore serve as a compelling evolutionary case study to explore whether placentas have developed structural adaptations to respond to the challenge of reduced nutrient availability in less invasive placentas. Here, we use three-dimensional X-ray microfocus computed tomography and electron microscopy to quantitatively evaluate key structures involved in exchange in human and equid placental villi. We find that equid villi have a higher surface area to volume ratio and deeper trophoblastic vessel indentation than human villi. Using illustrative computational models, we propose that these structural adaptations have evolved in equids to boost nutrient transfer to compensate for reduced invasiveness into maternal tissue. We discuss these findings in relation to the 'maternal-fetal conflict hypothesis' of placental evolution.
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