Immunological Development of Pouch Young Marsupials

Abstract

Marsupials are born in a very immature state. Many of the developmental processes that occur in utero in eutherian mammals take place during pouch life in marsupials. The timetable of the development of their physiological systems is strongly affected by the need to meet the challenges of the external world at a very early stage. Marsupial pouch young therefore offer convenient experimental systems for addressing biomedical questions, which are much harder to tackle using their less accessible eutherian equivalents.