Unraveling the role of TCF7L2 in self-renewal and differentiation of trophoblast stem cells (TSCs) [RNA-Seq]

Extravillous trophoblasts (EVTs) are essential for placental development, anchoring the placenta, invading the maternal decidua, and remodeling spiral arteries. TCF7L2, expressed in human placental tissues and EVTs, controls EVT motility. However, its targets and role in early trophoblast differentiation are not well understood. Using trophoblast stem cells (TSCs) as model system, we investigated roles of TCF7L2 in self-renewal and differentiation of trophoblasts using RNA-seq and ChIP-seq. Overall design: We explored the role of TCF7L2 in the differentiation of trophoblast stem cells (TSCs) into extravillous trophoblasts (EVTs) by depleting TCF7L2 using shRNAs. After knocking down TCF7L2, we extracted total RNA from the TSC-derived EVTs and performed RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) to analyze global gene expression changes.