Anirban Mukhopadhyay in The Scientist:
Pregnancy has long been framed as an evolutionary tug-of-war. The fetus presses for resources, while the mother mounts defenses to limit invasive placentation. A new study in PNAS challenges that view, reframing placental implantation as “coopetition,” a game-theory term for simultaneous competition and cooperation in the hope of mutually beneficial results.1 The shift could explain why some pregnancies succeed or fail, offering clues to disorders like preeclampsia.
“It started out as a random observation—when we grew maternal cells together with fetal cells, the maternal cells seemed to partially lose their pregnancy-prepared state,” said Yale University evolutionary biologist Günter Wagner, the co-corresponding author of the study. His collaborator Kshitiz at the University of Connecticut added, “The fetal trophoblasts had reversed the changes acquired by maternal cells in anticipation of pregnancy.”
More here.
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