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We greatly appreciate the interest of Dr. Somerset and his colleagues (see preceding letter) in our paper concerning the production of hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) in placental villous core mesenchymal cells and the presence of the HFG receptor, Met, in placental trophoblast cells. They note that, in our study, intact placental villous explants produced 24 times more HGF than did isolated placental villous core tissues. Furthermore they speculate that possible damage to the perivascular smooth muscle in the villous core may result in decreased HGF production from these cells. We acknowledge that tissue damage to cells in the villous core during isolation may be one possible explanation for decreased HGF production in our studies. That this effect would be selective for the perivascular smooth muscle cells seems unlikely, as the short Dispase digestion isolation procedure used is gentle and rapid, leaving the villous core tissue completely intact, including the perivascular tissues within the villous core (1).

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