With an Atlas, describe how the immune system of the woman adopts to the embryo during pregnancy

Every minute, 250 babies are born in the world. For their families, it is an extraordinary event. For scientists, birth is the outcome of a fact that implies a captivating paradox: The immune system of the woman is dedicated to protecting it against the invasion of viruses, Bacteria, fungi, among others, But it allows the development of a fetus, That contains genetic material from another person. Now, the scientists from England, Spain and Germany have been doing the first time The atlas of the cells in the contact zone between the placenta and the woman in the first months of pregnancy. In this way, they compile the existence of molecular mechanisms that make the woman's immune system "friend" with the presence of the fetus.

The Atlas with 35 cell types It is published by researchers in a journalist work Nature From Great Britain. They got it from studying 70,000 white blood cells and cells from the placenta and desidua (the layer that forms in the pregnant uterus), which came from women whose pregnancy ended between weeks 6 and 14 of gestation that gave their consent in writing.

The identity of the cell types and the molecular mechanisms that occur in the interaction between the maternal immune system and the fetus gives more knowledge to understand the causes of different problems that may occur during pregnancy. "It can be said that there are some mechanisms to ensure a friendly environment among fetal and maternal cells," he said. Infobae The first author of the work, the Spanish biotechnologist Roser Vento-Tormos, who is a post-doctor in the laboratory of the scholar Sarah Teichmann, at the Singer Institute, in Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Days after the ovum is attached to the sperm, the Blastosist, Which is implanted in the woman's uterus. The placental is also established in the disidua, which is the mucosa that covers the uterus transiently. There, the fetal and maternal cells make contact. It was traditionally that the fetus was like a graft within the woman, but thanks to the advance of the field of research in immunology of pregnancy everything changed. The ATLAS – which is also led by researchers from the IJsws Software Development in Valencia, Spain, the Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, Germany, and the University of Cambridge and Newcastle, England – involved another step in that address.

"In our study, we noticed that cells lie in the layer adjacent to the placental expression immunomodulatory molecules, and therefore, Reduce any type of inflammation that can be created by the invasion of fetal cells That form the basic structure of the placenta, and that attack the uterus, "said Vento-Tormos.

The fetus has its own cells that help the immune system of the mother not attack it. They are the troplasters, which are the main constituents of the placenta. "In one of the pathways of differentiation, the traphoblasts differentiate and attack the disidua and go to the arteries, where they replace the endothelial cells and maintain the arteries, which is crucial for increasing blood flow to the placenta, and thus the change From nutrition between the fetus and the mother. On their way they will meet with the immune cells and communicate with them. This very specific communication, which we determine in detail in our article, contributes to the fetal and maternal cells co-exist in the same environment. In fact, our study suggests that the immune system may be necessary for the necessary invasion of the troplasts, "said Vento-Tormos.

With the Atlas, we sought to see all the cells that are in the microenvironment and how they "talk" to each other. "I do not like to use this word because the immune system is not asleep.Maternal immune system is active and has specific functions such as helping in removing the arteries or helping the fetal traffoclasts attack The table and go to the arteries, there is a specific communication between the tropoblasts and the immune cells so that both cells interact peacefully, "said the Spanish scientist.

"Meanwhile, there is a lot of interest in knowing what the mediators are and the mechanisms of the" dialogue "or interaction between the placenta and the immunity of the mother at the beginning of pregnancy.The understanding of the mechanisms in the cellular and molecular level may The development of early treatments for gestatal complications that are diagnosed to the end of pregnancy, such as pryclampsia and fetal growth restriction, which can have serious consequences for maternal and neonatal nerves No, "he said. Infobae The physicist of chemistry, Claudia Pérez Leirós, chief investigator of Koniket in Ikvibisen, Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires, who together with Dr. Rosannamo Ramhorst directed a research group specialized in reproduction immunology. Preclucially disorders can affect up to 5% of pregnant women, It alters blood pressure and causes the death of 76,000 women per year in the world (25% of the deaths occurs in Latin America).

"The atlas was published in the magazine Nature It is very valuable, "said Dr. Pérez Leirós. Determining the different cell populations present in the maternal fetal maintenance at the beginning of pregnancy and indicates their possible interactions by a new technology to study the RNA of cells at the individual level, called transcriptics and a bioinformatic analysis. As the authors shuffle the data obtained in a public repository, the wealth of information will be used by researchers from other laboratories, and will contribute to accelerate studies related to pregnancy and associated pathologies. "

In addition to pregnancy pregnancy, the atlas of the first trimester of pregnancy can also provide clues to better understand what happens to the immune system when the body receives an organ transplant from another person, or when tumors develop. "The environment during pregnancy and cancer have simplicity," said Roser Vento-Tormos. "In both scenarios, cells with different DNA co-exist. Cancer cells are different because of mutations that accumulate in DNA. Even so, they have mechanisms to dodge the immune response, in a similar way as it comes with fetal trophoblasses. In the environment, we detected the presence of immune checkpoint inhibitors similar to those that occur in cancer. "