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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 May 1.
Published in final edited form as: Trends Endocrinol Metab. 2011 Oct 27;23(1):23–31. doi: 10.1016/j.tem.2011.09.003

Figure 2.

Figure 2

Galectin expression at the maternal–fetal interface. The figure represents three interfaces where maternal and fetal cells are in direct contact from the end of the first trimester of human pregnancy. The syncytiotrophoblast of the villous placenta (depicted with gold, right side) is bathed in maternal blood, whereas invasive extravillous cytotrophoblasts in the placental bed (depicted in red, right side) and chorionic trophoblasts in the fetal membranes (depicted in red, left side) are in contact with maternal cells in the decidua (depicted in dark blue, both sides). The dysregulated expression of highly expressed galectins at the maternal–fetal interface (depicted by arrows at sites of dysregulation) is often observed in pregnancy complications. Figure adapted from [16], © National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A.