Immune System Discloses Pregnancy Abnormalities

A better understanding of the normal development of a woman's immune system during pregnancy can offer diagnostic possibilities.

Shedding light on how the immune system behaves during pregnancy can be useful in detecting abnormalities, according to a research group at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s (NTNU) Centre for Molecular Inflammation Research (CEMIR).

Pregnancy is a challenge for the mother’s immune system from the outset. Half of the genes in the fetus are foreign to her body.

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‘A cytokine profile is a very sensitive method to understand the immune system’s normal development in pregnancy and how it’s affected.’

The immune system has to strike a balance between tolerating the fetus and protecting the mother and fetus from infections.

Keeping this fact in mind, researchers conducted a study to survey the development of women’s immune responses throughout pregnancy.

The study followed 707 women with normal pregnancies, who gave birth to healthy full-term and post-term babies. The findings are published in the journal Frontiers in Immunology.

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“We profiled several different cytokines in the blood using a simple blood sample from the mother. Linking the measurements of lots of cytokines at several points in the pregnancy gave us an imprint of the mother’s immune response”, says Jarmund, a research program student, and his colleagues at CEMIR.

Blood samples from the mother provide detailed information about inflammatory conditions in the body, the strain on the fetus, and early signs of the immunological disorder.

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Researchers found that immune activity in normal pregnancies follows a certain pattern, with elevated immune activation in the first three months, then a calmer phase the next three, and higher activity in the last three months, especially when childbirth is imminent.

By comparing analyses of blood samples from the pregnant woman with the survey, researchers can detect abnormalities very early.

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Early detection can help the doctor assess whether the woman has an increased risk of developing a disease and needs extra close follow-up.

Researchers discovered several conditions in the mother or fetus that created abnormalities in the immune response.

Another finding was that women who had given birth previously clearly had higher immune activation at the beginning of their pregnancy, but lower than first-time mothers as labor approached. Women who went over term had particularly strong immune activation, which might indicate stress.

Mapping the changes in cytokine profile will show us which pregnancy abnormalities we should look for to detect disease development as early as possible. Having this sensitive method will enable us to point out high-risk pregnancies so we can follow up with the mother and fetus more closely.

The research group does not yet know whether each disease generates a unique "fingerprint" in the immune response. So far, the analyses have revealed an abnormal cytokine profile for PCOS and gestational hypertension (high blood pressure) in early pregnancy.

Source-Medindia