Institute of Tropical Medicine, University of Tübingen, Germany.
Trop Med Int Health. 2011 Sep;16(9):1061-9. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-3156.2011.02812.x. Epub 2011 Jun 27.
As many studies have analysed the immunological phenotype of either neonatal cord or maternal blood during pregnancy, but few have compared paired maternal and neonatal samples, we designed and conducted such a study in a Central African setting.
We used flow cytometric analyses with blood samples from pairs of Gabonese mothers and their newborns to determine the cellular composition of mononuclear cells as well as the activation status of T and B lymphocytes and antigen-presenting cells.
The results indicate higher activation levels of neonatal cells involved in the first-line defence against pathogens such as natural killer cells, while the neonatal T- and B-cell compartment as well as the neonatal monocyte subpopulations shows a less mature phenotype.
Our findings likely reflect a specific neonatal defence mechanism that compensates for otherwise poorly developed immune responses at birth, especially important in an area with a high burden of infectious agents such as Gabon. The data contribute to the establishment of reference values for the mother-neonate relationship in African regions that have similar environmental characteristics.
许多研究分析了妊娠期间新生儿脐带或母体血液的免疫表型，但很少有研究比较配对的母体和新生儿样本，因此我们在中非环境中设计并进行了这样的研究。
我们使用流式细胞术分析了加蓬母婴配对的血液样本，以确定单核细胞的细胞组成，以及 T 和 B 淋巴细胞和抗原呈递细胞的激活状态。
结果表明，参与针对病原体（如自然杀伤细胞）的第一线防御的新生儿细胞的激活水平更高，而新生儿 T 细胞和 B 细胞区室以及新生儿单核细胞亚群则表现出不成熟的表型。
我们的发现可能反映了一种特定的新生儿防御机制，该机制补偿了出生时免疫反应不佳的情况，这在加蓬等传染病负担较高的地区尤为重要。这些数据为具有类似环境特征的非洲地区建立母婴关系的参考值做出了贡献。
