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The influence of the maternal uterine immune response on placentation in human subjects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 December 2008

Ashley King  and
Y. W. Loke
Ashley King*
Affiliation:
Research Group in Human Reproductive Immunobiology, Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge, Tennis Court Road, Cambridge CB2 1QP, UK
Y. W. Loke
Affiliation:
Research Group in Human Reproductive Immunobiology, Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge, Tennis Court Road, Cambridge CB2 1QP, UK
*
*Corresponding author: Dr Ashley King, fax +44 (0)1223 333727, email ak10003@mole.biol.cam.ac.uk
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Abstract

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The immunological relationship beween the mammalian fetus and its mother during pregnancy has been considered similar to that between a transplanted allograft and its recipient ever since Medawar (1953) first proposed the concept of the ‘fetus as an allograft’ in the early 1950s. Based on this analogy, it has been assumed that implantation of the fetal placenta in the uterus would be controlled similarly by a maternal immune response mediated by T-cells recognizing paternally-derived alloantigens expressed by the placenta. Surprisingly, recent evidence suggests that implantation might involve predominantly a novel allogeneic recognition system based on natural killer cells rather than T-cells (Loke & King, 1995). The cellular and molecular basis of this local immune interaction between the fetal placenta and maternal uterus is now the focus of intense research interest. Since aberrant implantation can cause a variety of clinical problems, including miscarriage, intrauterine growth retardation and pre-eclampsia, an understanding of the immunological mechanism by which this process is controlled could lead to the development of regimens to improve fetal growth and development.

Keywords

PlacentaTrophoblastNatural killer cellsImmunology
Type
Reproduction and Development Group Symposium on ‘Nutrition and immunology from fetal life to old age’
Information
Proceedings of the Nutrition Society , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , February 1999 , pp. 69 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © The Nutrition Society 1999

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