Effects of pregnant human, nonpregnant human, and fetal bovine sera on human chorionic gonadotropin, estradiol, and progesterone release by cultured human trophoblast cells.

Explant and cell culture methodologies are frequently employed in the investigation of the mechanisms that mediate placental hormone production. Recent reports suggest the presence of unknown regulatory factors in maternal serum that may impact significantly on the regulation of these biosynthetic pathways. The present study, therefore, determined the effects of sera obtained from pregnant women in the second to third trimester (PWS), nonpregnant women (NPWS), and men (MS) as well as commercially prepared FBS on hCG, estradiol, and progesterone release into medium by cultured human trophoblast cells. Placental villous tissue was enzymatically dispersed, and cytotrophoblast cells were purified via density gradient centrifugation and cultured (37 C; 90% air-10% CO2) in DMEM with 10% PWS, NPWS, MS, or FBS. All cytotrophoblast cultures aggregated and progressed to syncytial forms, although cells cultured with PWS exhibited notably larger multinucleated syncytial elements by 48 h in culture than cells cultured...