Myriam Hemberger

Myriam Hemberger is in the process of relocating to Canada to take up a Professorship at the University of Calgary. Her new webpage can be found here.

Research Summary

The focus of our work is on the establishment, maintenance and differentiation of trophoblast cells leading to formation of a functional placenta. The placenta is the defining organ of most mammals, providing a nutritive conduit that is crucial for all embryonic development to occur. Trophoblast cells are the major building blocks of the developing placenta. They are the first cell type to arise very early in development when they are set apart from cells giving rise to the embryo itself. The various functions of trophoblast cells early in development are vital for reproductive success, as they lay the foundations for a normal pregnancy and healthy foetus later on. A better understanding of the mechanisms underlying these early events will be critical to develop better screens and therapeutic avenues for pregnancy complications.

We are in particular interested in how the early trophoblast niche is regulated by transcription factors and specific epigenetic modifiers to ensure normal development. Leading on from this, we also investigate how susceptible the trophoblast compartment is to perturbations by extrinsic factors that activate specific signalling cascades, including in the context of development in mothers of advanced age. For this we are taking a range of high-throughput epigenomic and transcriptomic approaches to study these early events in placental development.

Key among our tools is the use of murine trophoblast stem (TS) cells, which mimic many of the properties of the early placenta. Learning about the self-renewal mechanisms of TS cells, in comparison to embryonic stem (ES) cells, will help us uncover the fundamental principles of how the early placenta develops and is influenced by external factors, which may be predictive for life long physiology and health. These insights will also enable us to better understand the earliest steps in human placentation and to develop novel cellular research tools to study the underlying molecular processes.

Latest Publications

ZFP57 regulation of transposable elements and gene expression within and beyond imprinted domains.
Shi H, Strogantsev R, Takahashi N, Kazachenka A, Lorincz MC, Hemberger M, Ferguson-Smith AC

KRAB zinc finger proteins (KZFPs) represent one of the largest families of DNA-binding proteins in vertebrate genomes and appear to have evolved to silence transposable elements (TEs) including endogenous retroviruses through sequence-specific targeting of repressive chromatin states. ZFP57 is required to maintain the post-fertilization DNA methylation memory of parental origin at genomic imprints. Here we conduct RNA-seq and ChIP-seq analyses in normal and ZFP57 mutant mouse ES cells to understand the relative importance of ZFP57 at imprints, unique and repetitive regions of the genome.

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Epigenetics & chromatin, 12, 1756-8935, 49, 2019

PMID: 31399135

Common and distinct transcriptional signatures of mammalian embryonic lethality.
Collins JE, White RJ, Staudt N, Sealy IM, Packham I, Wali N, Tudor C, Mazzeo C, Green A, Siragher E, Ryder E, White JK, Papatheodoru I, Tang A, Füllgrabe A, Billis K, Geyer SH, Weninger WJ, Galli A, Hemberger M, Stemple DL, Robertson E, Smith JC, Mohun T, Adams DJ, Busch-Nentwich EM

The Deciphering the Mechanisms of Developmental Disorders programme has analysed the morphological and molecular phenotypes of embryonic and perinatal lethal mouse mutant lines in order to investigate the causes of embryonic lethality. Here we show that individual whole-embryo RNA-seq of 73 mouse mutant lines (>1000 transcriptomes) identifies transcriptional events underlying embryonic lethality and associates previously uncharacterised genes with specific pathways and tissues. For example, our data suggest that Hmgxb3 is involved in DNA-damage repair and cell-cycle regulation. Further, we separate embryonic delay signatures from mutant line-specific transcriptional changes by developing a baseline mRNA expression catalogue of wild-type mice during early embryogenesis (4-36 somites). Analysis of transcription outside coding sequence identifies deregulation of repetitive elements in Morc2a mutants and a gene involved in gene-specific splicing. Collectively, this work provides a large scale resource to further our understanding of early embryonic developmental disorders.

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Nature communications, 10, 2041-1723, 2792, 2019

PMID: 31243271

Trophoblast organoids as a model for maternal-fetal interactions during human placentation.
Turco MY, Gardner L, Kay RG, Hamilton RS, Prater M, Hollinshead MS, McWhinnie A, Esposito L, Fernando R, Skelton H, Reimann F, Gribble FM, Sharkey A, Marsh SGE, O'Rahilly S, Hemberger M, Burton GJ, Moffett A

The placenta is the extraembryonic organ that supports the fetus during intrauterine life. Although placental dysfunction results in major disorders of pregnancy with immediate and lifelong consequences for the mother and child, our knowledge of the human placenta is limited owing to a lack of functional experimental models. After implantation, the trophectoderm of the blastocyst rapidly proliferates and generates the trophoblast, the unique cell type of the placenta. In vivo, proliferative villous cytotrophoblast cells differentiate into two main sub-populations: syncytiotrophoblast, the multinucleated epithelium of the villi responsible for nutrient exchange and hormone production, and extravillous trophoblast cells, which anchor the placenta to the maternal decidua and transform the maternal spiral arteries. Here we describe the generation of long-term, genetically stable organoid cultures of trophoblast that can differentiate into both syncytiotrophoblast and extravillous trophoblast. We used human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing to confirm that the organoids were derived from the fetus, and verified their identities against four trophoblast-specific criteria. The cultures organize into villous-like structures, and we detected the secretion of placental-specific peptides and hormones, including human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF15) and pregnancy-specific glycoprotein (PSG) by mass spectrometry. The organoids also differentiate into HLA-G extravillous trophoblast cells, which vigorously invade in three-dimensional cultures. Analysis of the methylome reveals that the organoids closely resemble normal first trimester placentas. This organoid model will be transformative for studying human placental development and for investigating trophoblast interactions with the local and systemic maternal environment.

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Nature, , 1476-4687, , 2018

PMID: 30487605