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The Primate Placenta as an Agent of Developmental and Health Trajectories Across the Life Course

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Building Babies

Part of the book series: Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects ((DIPR,volume 37))

Abstract

The significance of the intrauterine environment extends beyond the fetal and postnatal phases of growth into adulthood and across generations, as addressed by the developmental programming research paradigm. Much of this paradigm hinges on interpretations of birth weight as a proxy of this dynamic environment. However, the key player in this environment and more direct driver of birth weight is often overlooked and poorly understood in this context. The placenta is an incredible organ, existing in obscurity for a relatively short time, but performing myriad functions at the complex genomic intersection of three individuals: mother, father, and fetus. Regulation of placental function and structure is complex; just as fetal growth is a variable and plastic phenomenon depending on maternal condition, so does placental function respond sensitively to external ecological inputs. The goal of this chapter is to introduce the reader to the placenta as an extrasomatic fetal organ that interacts directly with maternal ecology, describe some of the mechanisms that underlie fetal development, explore the morphological and functional plasticity of the placenta in relation to fetal growth variation particularly in humans, and relate these observations to programming of adult function. Further, I present lessons about placental plasticity in a litter-bearing anthropoid primate, the common marmoset monkey, with special attention paid to life history and reproductive programming to suggest that placental function may serve as a driver of evolutionary change. Finally, I argue that including the placenta in primate research will lead to important evolutionary and clinically-relevant discoveries.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In the case of the litter-bearing callitrichine primates, all fetuses contribute to the genetic composition of the placenta.

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Acknowledgments

The author thanks Kate Clancy, Katie Hinde, and three anonymous reviewers for their sensible and thought-provoking suggestions. This work would not have been possible without the rich intellectual engagement and collegiality of Robert Martin, Suzette Tardif, Corinna Ross, Donna Layne Colon, and Elizabeth Abrams. Thanks especially to Victoria DeMartelly for her patient endnote wrangling. Thanks to Meredith Kachel for drawing Fig. 2.3. During the writing of this chapter I was generously supported by the National Institutes of Health Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health program at the University of Illinois at Chicago (K12HD055892). Finally, I am deeply grateful to the strong and brilliant women in my life who inspire my work.

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  1. Department of Women, Children, and Family Health Science, College of Nursing, University of Illinois at Chicago, 845 S. Damen Avenue, Chicago, IL, 60612, USA

    Julienne N. Rutherford

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  1. , Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois, 109 Davenport Hall, M/C 148, Urbana, 61801, Illinois, USA

    Kathryn B.H. Clancy

  2. , Department of HUman Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 11 Divinity Ave, Cambridge, 02138, Massachusetts, USA

    Katie Hinde

  3. , Comparative Primate Biology Laboratory, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, 60612, Illinois, USA

    Julienne N. Rutherford

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Rutherford, J.N. (2013). The Primate Placenta as an Agent of Developmental and Health Trajectories Across the Life Course. In: Clancy, K., Hinde, K., Rutherford, J. (eds) Building Babies. Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects, vol 37. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4060-4_2

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