Characterization of primary isolated villous CTB and proximal column EVT from first trimester human placenta.

The goal of this study was to identify the gene expression signatures of two closely related types of trophoblast in human placentas: villous cytotrophoblasts (vCTB) and proximal column extravillous trophoblasts (pcEVT). The two populations were isolated from first trimester placentas and identified using the specific surface markers, EGFR (vCTB) and HLA-G (pcEVT). First trimester trophoblasts were isolated from 6-9 week gestational age placentas and sorted into EGFR+/HLAG- vCTB and EGFR-/HLAG+ pcEVT. Whole genome expression analysis was performed on purified RNA of the two sorted populations.