PPAR Signaling in Placental Development and Function

• Main Authors: Yaacov Barak, Yoel Sadovsky, Tali Shalom-Barak
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hindawi Limited 2008-01-01
• Series: PPAR Research
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2008/142082

With the major attention to the pivotal roles of PPARs in diverse aspects of energy metabolism, the essential functions of PPARγ and PPARβ/δ in placental development came as a surprise and were often considered a nuisance en route to their genetic analysis. However, these findings provided an opportune entrée into placental biology. Genetic and pharmacological studies, primarily of knockout animal models and cell culture, uncovered networks of PPARγ and PPARδ, their heterodimeric RXR partners, associated transcriptional coactivators, and target genes, that regulate various aspects of placental development and function. These studies furnish both specific information about trophoblasts and the placenta and potential hints about the functions of PPARs in other tissues and cell types. They reveal that the remarkable versatility of PPARs extends beyond the orchestration of metabolism to the regulation of cellular differentiation, tissue development, and trophoblast-specific functions. This information and its implications are the subject of this review.