ABSTRACT
Morphological evaluation of perfused or preserved tissues can establish the extent of damage to the cellular architecture (vasculature, connective tissue, parenchymal cells) as a result of organ distress during the experimental procedure. Distress in perfused organs becomes evident by a rise of the vascular resistance to the perfusion flow and by an increase in the interstitial oedema which is easily detected and measured but is difficult to prevent in long term experiments.
There exists a hierarchy of preservability for the different tissues but the haemochorial human (or monkey) placental membrane is a unique structure for assessing morphological and functional integrity of the layers (trophoblast, villous stroma, endothelium) which separate the two different perfusion streams in the maternal and foetal blood channels.
In this review, emphasis has ben placed on two essential criteria to evaluate placental viability and functional capacity:
– the control of the efficiency of perfusion by radio-angiographic visualization of the diffusion of the perfusate in the isolated placental lobule.
– the histological and electron microscopical study of placental biopsies and post perfusion controls.
Similarly to the case in other tissues, light microscopy of the placenta only shows the gross alterations due to prolonged unsatisfactory survival conditions in vitro. Electron microscopy, however, provides a sensitive morphological test to detect early changes in the metabolic activity of the trophoblast and to control the integrity of the foetal capillary wall. Ultrastructural alterations, when they appear, are first seen at the cell borders and in the organelles (endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondria, lysosomes) of the syncytiotrophoblast layer. The endothelial cell lining of foetal capillaries usuallly remains intact during the first hours of a satisfactory perfusion with dilute blood but a swelling of the endothelium and abnormal endothelial cytoplasm projections in the capillary lumen may be observed when other perfusion fluids are used.
The physiological importance of the lysosome-like bodies found in the apical cytoplasm of the syncytiotrophoblast and the in vitro stability of the lysosomal membrane necessitate further investigations.