Measurement of mitochondrial respiration in trophoblast culture.

Pregnancy is a state of oxidative stress, which becomes exaggerated under pathological conditions, such as preeclampsia, IUGR, diabetes and obesity, where placental mitochondrial dysfunction is observed. The majority of investigations utilize isolated mitochondria when measuring mitochondrial activity in placenta. However, this does not provide a complete physiological readout of mitochondrial function. This technical note describes a method to measure respiratory function in intact primary syncytiotrophoblast from human term placenta.