We are excited to announce that the first presentation of a new series of scientific seminars was very successful. It took place on 16th of January in the seminar room on the second floor of the UT's Translational Medicine Centre (Ravila 14b, Tartu).

The presentation was given by Shaghayegh Basatvat, who is a PhD student from the Alireza Fazeli's research group at the University of Sheffield. The title of her presentation was: "Investigating the Tribbles-2 modulation of innate immune system during embryo implantation using 2D and 3D cell culture models".

"Successful embryo implantation is a compulsory yet cryptic episode in reproduction. The maternal innate immune system, specifically the Toll-Like Receptors (TLRs) as the main family of pathogen recognition receptors, is involved in maintaining the immunity in the female reproductive tract. Activation of TLRs with their specific ligands, during the implantation process has a negative effect on the implantation outcome. Tribbles proteins, a family of psuedokinase proteins, modulate various signaling pathways within the cell. Tribbles-2 (Trib2) protein is modulating TLR5 signal transduction pathway. We have shown that Trib2 knockout female mice were infertile. Hence, we hypothesized that Trib2 protein is involved in regulation of female fertility. Initial investigations demonstrated that embryo implantation failure might be the main cause of infertility in the female Trib2 knockout mice. Thus, the aim of this study is to understand the role of Trib2 in embryo implantation and regulation of TLR5 signaling pathway and as a result how this protein is involved in the female fertility."

The presentations slides are available here: slides

If you have any questions or suggestions about our next Journal Club presentations, please contact: Hemminki Otstavel (hemminki.otstavel@ut.ee), +37256354033