Padykula H A
Anat Rec. 1976 Jan;184(1):49-71. doi: 10.1002/ar.1091840105.
The principal cell types associated with the humoral immune response (monocyte-macrophages, lymphocytes, and plasma cells) are numerous in the endometrial stroma of the uterus during the first four postpartum days in two types of mammals, the marsupial North America opossum and the eutherian albino rat. This transietn cellular differentiation coincides with the physiologic period of rapid uterine regression which includes massive reduction in the amount of extracellular stromal material. In addition, heterophils and eosinophils, cell types also known to be associated with phagocytic and immunologic activity, appear in the stroma during the first two postpartum days; their presence may, however, be associated more directly with the postpartum estrus that occurs on day 1 postpartum than with endometrial regression. Thus, the five cell types, which are known in pathologic conditions to be components present in the inflammatory response to a foreign antigen, are conspicuously present in the normal regressing endometrium. Furthermore, there is ample ultrastructural evidence of frequent macrophagic-lymphocytic interaction, transformation of lymphocytes, and active secretion by plasma cells during this early postpartum period. An hypothesis has been derived by uniting this new description of endometrial stromal cell differentiation with the existing literature on uterine collagenase activity, an important feature of postpartum regression (reviews of Gross, '74; Harris and Krane, '74). It is based on the assumption that during regression the extracellular action of neutral collagenase (and possibly other extracellular proteases) release new antigenic sites in proteins located in the ground substance. In the case of collagenase, these transient antigenic sites would arise at the locus of enzymic cleavage as well as from the subsequent denaturation of the fragments of the collagen molecule. This endogenous antigenic stimulus would be strong and temporary, and would lead to the cellular manifestations of the transient humoral immunologic response which are evident in the regressing stroma of these two mammals. This humoral immune reaction may be one of the regulatory mechanisms involved in the cyclic renewal of the extracellular compartment of the uterine stroma.
在有袋类动物北美负鼠和真兽类白化大鼠这两种哺乳动物产后的头四天里，与体液免疫反应相关的主要细胞类型（单核细胞 - 巨噬细胞、淋巴细胞和浆细胞）在子宫的子宫内膜基质中数量众多。这种短暂的细胞分化与子宫快速退化的生理时期相吻合，子宫快速退化包括细胞外基质物质数量的大幅减少。此外，嗜异性粒细胞和嗜酸性粒细胞这两种已知与吞噬和免疫活性相关的细胞类型，在产后的头两天出现在基质中；然而，它们的存在可能与产后第一天出现的产后发情更直接相关，而非与子宫内膜退化相关。因此，这五种在病理状况下已知是对外来抗原炎症反应组成成分的细胞类型，在正常退化的子宫内膜中明显存在。此外，有充分的超微结构证据表明，在产后早期，巨噬细胞与淋巴细胞频繁相互作用、淋巴细胞转化以及浆细胞活跃分泌。通过将这种对子宫内膜基质细胞分化的新描述与关于子宫胶原酶活性（产后退化的一个重要特征，见Gross，'74；Harris和Krane，'74的综述）的现有文献相结合，得出了一个假说。该假说基于这样的假设：在退化过程中，中性胶原酶（可能还有其他细胞外蛋白酶）的细胞外作用会在位于基质中的蛋白质中释放新的抗原位点。就胶原酶而言，这些短暂的抗原位点会出现在酶切位点以及胶原分子片段随后的变性部位。这种内源性抗原刺激会强烈且短暂，并导致在这两种哺乳动物退化的基质中明显出现的短暂体液免疫反应的细胞表现。这种体液免疫反应可能是参与子宫基质细胞外区室周期性更新的调节机制之一。
