Mihaela Pavličev

The paper reconstructs the evolutionary history of neonatal maturity in mammals and finds that the eutherian ancestor likely gave birth to precocial neonates, challenging the idea that precociality evolved multiple times within eutherians.

This paper compares single-cell data across six mammalian species to uncover evolutionary patterns in cell types and signaling at the fetal-maternal interface, finding conserved gene signatures and stepwise evolution of decidual cells.

This paper compares single-cell transcriptomes of uterine and embryonic tissues across rodents and opossums to show that marsupial uteri activate an ancestral signaling axis similar to eutherian implantation, but with inhibitory signals preventing invasion.

This study identifies a SNP that affects Wnt4 expression in endometrial stroma, linking it to pregnancy, endometriosis, and reproductive cancers through differential gene regulation.

This study identifies endogenous retroviruses as drivers of species-specific germline transcriptomes in mammals, particularly through their role in gene activation and enhancer function in spermatogenesis.