Effect of high oxygen on placental function in short-term explant cultures.

Ex situ culture of human gestational tissues has been routinely used as a model to investigate tissue function. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of varying oxygen concentrations on human term placental explants over a 24-h time period. Specifically, the effect of incubating placental explants in oxygen concentrations of 8%, 21% or 95% on tissue viability, metabolism and cell death was measured by assessing glucose consumption, lactate production, release of lactate dehydrogenase, parathyroid hormone-related protein (PTHrP), tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) and 8-isoprostane, immunoreactivity for cleaved-caspase-9 and immunohistochemistry for the caspase-3-cleaved cytokeratin-18 neoepitope, M30.