Foetus fools immune defense system of mother

In pregnancy the foetus secretes proteins that fool the immune system of the pregnant woman so that it will not attack the foetus. This is shown by Lucia Mincheva-Nilsson, associate professor and researcher at the Department of Clinical Microbiology, Umeå University, Sweden, in the leading publication Journal of Immunology. The findings may be of great importance in transplants and in the treatment of cancer and infertility.

Transplants between humans are easily attacked by the recipient’s immune defense system and can therefore stop functioning and be rejected. But there is one occasion when such tissue transfers succeed and no rejection takes place­-during normal pregnancy.

The foetus, as a separate individual, can be seen as a transplant that runs the risk of being rejected, but is accepted and not attacked by the immune system of the pregnant woman. This is a phenomenon that has long stumped scientists. If the reasons for this lack of rejection during normal pregnancy could be understood, it would be a tremendous boon, not only when it comes to certain infertility problems but also for facilitating transplants and enhancing our knowledge of how the immune defense system works.

In a pioneering study, now being published in the leading publication Journal of Immunology, Associate Professor Lucia Mincheva-Nilsson and her associates at the Section for Clinical Immunology at Umeå University have shown for the first time that an entirely new mechanism is involved in this acceptance of tissue during pregnancy.

The surface cells of the placenta that belong to the fetus express and secrete proteins (MICA and MICB) into the blood of the pregnant woman. These proteins inhibit her white blood corpuscles, so-called NK cells and cytotoxic T lymphocytes, which would normally attack the foetus. The attack is thus averted, and the mother’s immune system is fooled, which enables the pregnancy to continue in a normal manner.

This is a discovery that is of great significance in the understanding of the immunological mechanisms in normal pregnancy, but it can also help us understand and find solutions to rejection problems in transplants. Also, certain tumor cells can sometimes produce these molecules and avoid being detected by the immune system by using the same mechanism.

Media Contact

Bertil Born alfa

More Information:

http://www.umu.se

All latest news from the category: Health and Medicine

This subject area encompasses research and studies in the field of human medicine.

Among the wide-ranging list of topics covered here are anesthesiology, anatomy, surgery, human genetics, hygiene and environmental medicine, internal medicine, neurology, pharmacology, physiology, urology and dental medicine.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Lighting up the future

New multidisciplinary research from the University of St Andrews could lead to more efficient televisions, computer screens and lighting. Researchers at the Organic Semiconductor Centre in the School of Physics and…

Researchers crack sugarcane’s complex genetic code

Sweet success: Scientists created a highly accurate reference genome for one of the most important modern crops and found a rare example of how genes confer disease resistance in plants….

Evolution of the most powerful ocean current on Earth

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays an important part in global overturning circulation, the exchange of heat and CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere, and the stability of Antarctica’s ice sheets….

Partners & Sponsors