Pregnancy in Kangaroo rats

~While everyone’s busy at ESA this week, we’d like to keep the 40th anniversary ball rolling with a guest post from a visiting researcher at Portal. Jess Dudley has been using the Portal area to compare pregnancy in kangaroo rats and Australian marsupials. We’ll be featuring other guest posts through the rest of the year. (If you’d like to do something similar, please send us your info!)~

 

In July 2015 I travelled the 24+ hours from Sydney, Australia to the beautiful town of Portal to research pregnancy in Kangaroo rats. To everyone’s astonishment we do not have Kangaroo rats in Australia! I am sure I don’t need to explain my fascination with Kangaroo rats with this audience but in terms of pregnancy they have some unique features which differ from most rodents. This finding by King and Tibbitts in the 1960’s led me to wonder how the placenta forms during pregnancy in these resilient animals. To answer these questions I was lucky enough to visit Portal twice in the summers of 2015 and 2017 to trap Kangaroo rats and collect tissue from the females. I have completed Transmission and Scanning Electron Microscopy as well as Western blotting and Immunofluorescence microscopy on the uterine samples from pregnant Merrriam’s kangaroo rats to determine what structural and molecular changes are needed for implantation of the early embryo and ultimately a successful pregnancy.

Fat tailed dunnart (Sminthopsis crassicaudata) (https://museumvictoria.com.au)

 

My initial research into the molecular mechanisms of implantation and pregnancy began in an Australian marsupial species the Fat tailed dunnart (Sminthopsis crassicaudata) which has the same partly invasive placenta as the Kangaroo rat.

Fat tailed dunnart (Sminthopsis crassicaudata) (https://museumvictoria.com.au) range. IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) 2016.

 

Through these comparative studies we have found that the molecular mechanisms allowing for successful pregnancy are conserved among eutherian and marsupial mammals during the early stages of pregnancy regardless of how invasive their placenta becomes.

An Immunofluorescence image showing localization of adhesion molecules in green and cell nuclei in blue from a non-pregnant Merriams’ Kangaroo rat. Uterine Epithelial Cells = UEC. Lumen = L.

Transmission Electron Microscopy image of uterine epithelial cells from a Merriams’ Kangaroo rat in the
early stages of pregnancy.

It has been an amazing experience to work in the Chihuahuan Desert. I was introduced to animals that I had never heard of and witnessed countless stunning sunrises and sunsets as well as beautiful starry night skies. It was an experience I will never forget. I would like to thank Glenda Yenni, Leigh Nicholson and all of the wonderful people at the Southwestern Research Station for their assistance and advice during the completion of this project.

A male K-rat hiding behind a SWRS intern (©Leigh Nicholson)

 

Jessica S. Dudley | PhD candidate
The University of Sydney