Use of the term “Trophoblast” for tissues in therian mammals

Abstract

Use of the term “trophoblast” in descriptions of therian (marsupial and eutherian) mammals has caused confusion because of misinterpretations of blastular homologies and because of imprecise application in functional versus ontogenetic‐phylogenetic senses. Marsupials follow the plan of early development characteristic of noneutheian amniotes. Eutherians, in contrast, are unique in the early determination of presumptive embryonic versus extraembryonic cells through formation of inner cell mass versus trophoblastic (or trophectodermal) tissues, respectively. No cellular unit of the eutherian blastula is recognizable unequivocally as the homologue of a specific part of the protodermal marsupial blastula; progressive deletion of innovative but phylogenetically older ontogenetic steps probably figured importantly in the evolution of eutherian early embryogenesis. Because of marked differences in mode of formation and in cellular fates, homology of the blastocoel between marsupials and eutherians is questioned. It is suggested that use of the term “trophoblast” (1) be restricted to eutherians in discussions of ontogenesis or phylogenesis, and (2) be deemphasized in the functional sense (i.e., fetal‐maternal exchanges) for marsupials, in favor of the more appropriate tissue terms of “choriovitelline” and “chorioallantoic” membranes. Integral to the origin of the eutherian style of embryogenesis was the evolution during Cretaceous time of neomorphic, extraembryonic tissues (i.e., trophoblast) having physiological properties that allowed the unique combination of (1) intimate apposition of fetal and maternal tissues and circulatory systems, along with (2) sustained, active morphogenesis. Marsupials have not achieved such a combination.