Maternal recognition of pregnancy in the mare: does it exist and why do we care?

Maternal recognition of pregnancy (MRP) is a process by which an early conceptus signals its presence to the maternal system and prevents the lysis of the corpus luteum, thus ensuring a maternal milieu supportive of pregnancy continuation. It is a fundamental aspect of reproductive biology, yet in the horse, the mechanism underlying MRP remains unknown. This review seeks to address some of the controversies surrounding the evidence and theories of MRP in the equine species, such as the idea that the horse does not conform to the MRP paradigm established in other species or that equine MRP involves a mechanical, rather than chemical, signal. The review examines the challenges of studying this particularly clandestine phenomenon along with the new tools in scientific research that will drive this quest forward in coming years, and discusses the value of knowledge gleaned along this path in the context of clinical applications for improving breeding outcomes in the horse industry.

• Publication year

  2021

• Venue

  Reproduction

• Publication date

  2021-04-09

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1530/REP-20-0437PMID 33957605PMCID 8183633
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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