Figure 1

IHC controls. Less than 10-week-old human placenta used as a positive control. (A) Kisspeptin-IR shows intense cell-type specific staining in the syncytiotrophoblasts (black arrow), while the cytotrophoblast layers remain unaffected (black arrowhead). (B) GPR54-IR shows intense staining in the villous cytotrophoblasts (black arrow), the extravillous cytotrophoblasts (black arrowhead), and moderate staining on the syncytiotrophoblast membrane (grey arrow). (C) Schematic of the 1–145 amino acid (aa) KiSS-1 pro-peptide. Metastin (Kp-54) is encoded within the 68–121 aa sequence, while Kp-10 is encoded within this same region from 112–121 aa. The specific blocking peptide is encoded within the 100–120 aa sequence. (D) Varying kisspeptin-IR was found among the different blocking peptides used. Blocking the primary antibody with full-length metastin (Kp-54) and blocking peptide resulted in complete loss of immunoreactivity, while Kp-10 was unable to block any detectable staining.