Data from: Endometrial decidualization status modulates endometrial microvascular complexity and trophoblast outgrowth in gelatin methacryloyl hydrogels

The endometrium undergoes rapid cycles of vascular growth, remodeling, and
breakdown during the menstrual cycle and pregnancy. Decidualization is an
endometrial differentiation process driven by steroidal sex hormones that
is critical for blastocyst-uterine interfacing and blastocyst
implantation. Certain pregnancy disorders may be linked to decidualization
processes. However, much remains unknown regarding the role of
decidualization and reciprocal trophoblast-endometrial interactions on
endometrial angiogenesis and trophoblast invasion. Here, we report an
engineered endometrial microvascular network embedded in gelatin
methacryloyl hydrogels that displays morphological and functional patterns
of decidualization. We show vessel complexity and soluble factor secretion
are sensitive to decidualization and affect trophoblast motility. We also
show that in our system, the signaling between endometrial and trophoblast
cells was not bi-directional. Although endometrial microvascular network
decidualization status influences the activity of trophoblast cells,
trophoblast cells do not appear to influence structural changes in the
endometrial microvascular network cultures. This finding has interesting
implications as to the control of early stages of trophoblast motility
from the endometrium but no marked early changes in its microvascular
architecture in response to initial trophoblast implantation. These
findings add to a growing literature that the endometrium has biological
agency in the uterine-trophoblast interfacing process during implantation.
Finally, we demonstrate the engineered microvascular networks can be
combined with epithelial cultures to form a stratified endometrial
tri-culture model. These endometrial microvascular networks provide a
well-characterized platform to investigate dynamic changes in angiogenesis
in response to pathological and physiological endometrial states.