Should we be manipulating the immune system in pregnancy?
Immune system changes during pregnancy are precisely timed
Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have completed the first-ever characterization of the meticulously timed immune system changes in women that occur during pregnancy.
The findings, which will be published Sept. 1 in Science Immunology, reveal that there is an immune clock of pregnancy and suggest it may help doctors predict preterm birth.
"Pregnancy is a unique immunological state. We found that the timing of immune system changes follows a precise and predictable pattern in normal pregnancy," said the study's senior author, Brice Gaudilliere, MD, PhD, assistant professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine.
Although physicians have long known that the expectant mother's immune system adjusts to prevent her body from rejecting the fetus, no one had investigated the full scope of these changes, nor asked if their timing was tightly controlled. "Ultimately, we want to be able to ask, 'Does your immune clock of pregnancy run too slow or too fast?'" said Gaudilliere.
N. Aghaeepour el al., "An immune clock of human pregnancy," Science Immunology (2017). immunology.sciencemag.org/look … 6/sciimmunol.aan2946
An immunological “clock” of pregnancy highlights key immune system features at certain time points during pregnancy. Credit: Carla Schaffer / AAAS
Aghaeepour et al.’s analysis revealed entire cellular programs, rather than isolated mechanisms, that characterized the chronological progression of immune adaptations over the entire course of pregnancy. Credit: Aghaeepour et al., Sci. Immunol. 2, eaan2946 (2017)
