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pregnancy in mice, she was able to reliably prevent implantationof the embryo in the uterus. In human endometrialcells, Cx43 enhanced the differentiation of cells that makeup the stromal tissue of the uterus. These cells producefactors that promote the growth of new blood vessels.The findings have important implications for early pregnancyloss and female infertility, according to Dr. IndraniBagchi, veterinary biosciences.“Connexin 43 has been shown to be in the uterus inmany animal systems—cows and pigs and rodents andhumans,” Laws says. “But this is the first time that it’s beenshown to be critical for pregnancy.”More at news.illinois.edu/news/08/0910pregnancy.htmlCollege Faculty Help Lead NewNIH Center for Reproductionand Infertility ResearchDrs. Indrani Bagchi and Paul Cooke, both of the Departmentof Veterinary Biosciences, are among the Universityof Illinois faculty with a leadership role in a new Center forReproduction and Infertility Research.With funding of about $8 million over five years fromthe Advisory Council of the National Institute of ChildHealth and Human Development, the center will support amultidisciplinary research team with a goal of understandingthe mechanisms that control maternal-fetal interactionsduring early pregnancy and identifying factors thatunderlie infertility in women suffering from endometriosis,a common gynecologic disorder.The Illinois center is one of fourteen national centersof excellence that are part of a program called the SpecializedCooperative Centers Program in Reproduction andInfertility Research.Dr. Milan Bagchi, from the campus’s School of Molecularand Cellular Biology in the College of Liberal Arts andSciences, will direct the center and coordinate researchefforts. Clinicians from the Emory University MedicalSchool and a molecular geneticist from Baylor College ofMedicine also will contribute to the effort.The center will contribute to translational research onthe Urbana-Champaign campus by bringing the knowledgegained from basic cell biological studies and uniqueanimal models to the clinical realm to inform the molecularbasis of human infertility associated with endometrialdysfunction.More at news.illinois.edu/news/08/0129reproduction.html.Female Embryonic SexualDevelopment DrivenBy Universal FactorA gene essential to the growth and development of mostorgan systems in the body also is vital to female—but notmale—embryonic sexual development, according to Dr.Humphrey Yao, veterinary biosciences, and his colleaguesat the University of Illinois and the University of Texas.The findings, which appeared in Human Molecular Genetics,lend support to a controversial hypothesis about mammaliansexual development.In the beginning—in terms of their sexual organs—allembryos look alike, explains Dr. Yao. “They have a commonprimordium, the foundation forboth testis and ovary. Only at acertain stage of development doesthis primordium start to follow adifferent path.”Dr. Yao’s laboratory investigatedthe role of beta-catenin, animportant regulator of cell proliferationand differentiation anda molecule known to be involvedin transforming the primordiuminto testis or ovary.First the researchers developeda mouse embryo in which thebeta-catenin gene could be shutoff at the earliest stage of developmentof the gonads while remain-student Chia-Feng Liu found that aDr. Humphrey Yao and graduateing functional in other organs. gene essential to the development ofmany organs is also vital to female,“To our surprise, the ovariesbut not male, sexual development.still formed,” Dr. Yao says. Butmale sexual structures alsoappeared, creating an amalgamation of male and femalesexual structures. “That tells us very conclusively that betacateninis an internal regulator of this pathway,” says Dr. Yao.To see how the absence of beta-catenin would affecttestes formation, the researchers repeated the experimentin embryos in the early stages of testes development.“When we looked at the testes without beta-catenin,”Dr. Yao says, “they developed just fine. I couldn’t believe it.How could such an important gene like beta-catenin functiondifferently in males and females?”These findings provided some support for a recenthypothesis which proposes that embryos will developtestes as the default unless an unknown factor disrupts thepathway and leads to the development of ovaries. Previoustheories said that unless it had a Y chromosome, an embryodeveloped ovaries and became female by default .More at news.illinois.edu/news/08/1113embryo.html.L. Brian StaufferVeterinary Report • Fall/Winter 2008u