Placenta and Trophoblast

In the well known series: Methods in Molecular Medicine, Humana Press has invited Michael J. Soares and Joan S. Hunt to edit two volumes of a book describing the protocols and methods used in placenta research. Our American colleagues have done a fantastic job and produced a sort of methodology “Bible” that you would recommend to your post-docs and PhD students to get for Christmas.

Each volume is divided into five parts and each part contains four to eleven chapters written by key opinion leaders in their field of expertise. Each chapter is built in the same way: it has a brief introduction followed by a list of required items, a detailed protocol and notes. The notes are particularly important because they help the reader to perform the experiments without too many difficulties. It must be added that sources of supplies are detailed and illustrations (also available on a CD sold with the book) highlight details of the techniques.

The techniques described in this book are also applicable to other organs or tissues and cover a vast range of approaches going from oestrous cycle monitoring to conventional immunohistochemistry and from flow cytometry to trophoblastic stem cell production and transfection. The book has further merits. It does not limit the discussion only to placenta but also includes major aspects of uterine and foetal biology, i.e. the reader will find detailed protocols of how to immortalize endometrial cells or how to measure blastocyst outgrowth. Furthermore, the book does not deal only with one species but includes human, mice, rats, baboons, marmosets and there is even a protocol of how to produce uterine gland knockouts in sheep.

As in any book, some items are missing. Although primary cytotrophoblast cell cultures are described in great details, there are no indications of how to prepare and culture placental explants other than for invasion studies. On the uterine side, there is no description of the classical markers used to characterise endometrial cell subpopulations.

Despite this, “Placenta and Trophoblast. Methods and Protocols” is a well-presented and organised reference book, where you will find very quickly the most recent and detailed protocol of the experiment that will prove or disprove your wildest hypothesis.