Charles Explorer logo
🇬🇧

Pregnancy and regulatory T-lymphocytes

Publication at Faculty of Medicine in Hradec Králové |
2012

Abstract

Regulatory T cells (Treg) have important modulatory roles in the immune system, to prevent autoimmune disease, to maintain immune homeostasis and to modulate immune responses during infection. There is a steady increase in the knowledge of tolerogenic subpopulation and we detect that Treg cells are indispensable for successful progress of pregnancy because of their ability to jointly participate on the maternal tolerance of the fetus.

Treg cells are very enriched at the fetal-maternal interface, in the decidua tissue. The number of Treg cells is also increased in the circulation of pregnant women, reaching the peak in the second trimester of pregnancy.

These changes are suppressed in atopic women and could contribute to the complications such as preterm birth. Treg cells reveal a great therapeutic potential for treatment of some pathologies of reproduction.