Ricerc@Sapienza

There is emerging evidence that early uterine development in humans is an important determinant of conditions such as ontogenetic progesterone resistance, menstrual preconditioning, defective deep placentation and pre-eclampsia in young adolescents. A keyobservation is the relative infrequency of neonatal uterine bleeding and hormone withdrawal at birth. The origin of the uterus from the fusion of the two paramesonephric, or Mu¨llerian, ducts was described almost 200 years ago. The uterus forms around the 10th week of foetal life.

The CFDP1 proteins have been linked to craniofacial development and osteogenesis in vertebrates, though
specific human syndromes have not yet been identified. Alterations of craniofacial development represent the
main cause of infant disability and mortality in humans. For this reason, it is crucial to understand the cellular
functions and mechanism of action of the CFDP1 protein in model vertebrate organisms. Using a combination of
genomic, molecular and cell biology approaches, we have performed a functional analysis of the cfdp1 gene and