Are your students ready for anatomy and physiology? Developing tools to identify students at risk for failure.

High failure rates in introductory college science courses, including anatomy and physiology, are common at institutions across the country, and determining the specific factors that contribute to this problem is challenging. To identify students at risk for failure in introductory physiology courses at our open-enrollment institution, an online pilot survey was administered to 200 biology students. The survey results revealed several predictive factors related to academic preparation and prompted a comprehensive analysis of college records of >2,000 biology students over a 5-yr period.

Hypoxia-inducible factor 1alpha (HIF1A) mediates distinct steps of rat trophoblast differentiation in gradient oxygen.

Defective differentiation of invasive, placental trophoblast cells has been associated with several pregnancy-related disorders. This study examines the molecular, functional, and morphological differentiation of lineage-specific, trophoblast giant cells under a gradient of oxygen concentrations. Low oxygen (3%) inhibited differentiation, but this inhibition was relieved in a stepwise fashion with increasing levels of oxygen.

Hypoxia inhibits differentiation of lineage-specific Rcho-1 trophoblast giant cells.

Defects in placental development lead to pregnancies at risk for miscarriage and intrauterine growth retardation and are associated with preeclampsia, a leading cause of maternal death and premature birth. In preeclampsia, impaired placental formation has been associated with alterations in a specific trophoblast lineage, the invasive trophoblast cells. In this study, an RT-PCR Trophoblast Gene Expression Profile previously developed by our laboratory was utilized to examine the lineage-specific gene expression of the rat Rcho-1 trophoblast cell line.

Transforming growth factor-beta induces differentiation of the labyrinthine trophoblast stem cell line SM10.

The mammalian placenta consists of different trophoblast cell types that assist in the variety of functions required for the maintenance of pregnancy. In rodents, labyrinthine trophoblasts of the placenta are especially important, because they are capable of differentiating into fused labyrinthine cells, which form the feto-maternal exchange surface. Even though the molecular signals triggering labyrinthine trophoblast differentiation are poorly understood, transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) has been shown to be present in the placental environment and alter trophoblast development.

Identification of committed placental stem cell lines for studies of differentiation.

Trophoblasts provide a model to investigate fundamental mechanisms of stem cell differentiation, but the availability of trophoblast stem cell lines is limited. Here we report the development of an RT-PCR-based lineage-specific profile as a method to identify the lineages of placental trophoblast cells routinely and specifically. This profiling method was used to analyze the mouse SM10 and rat HRP-1 cell lines, isolated from a region of the placental labyrinth, but of previously unidentified lineage.