Department of Clinical Sciences and Translational Medicine, University of Rome "Tor Vergata", Via Montpellier 1, 00133 Rome, Italy.
Saint Camillus International University of Health and Medical Sciences, Via di Sant' Alessandro 8, 00131 Rome, Italy.
Int J Mol Sci. 2020 Nov 18;21(22):8714. doi: 10.3390/ijms21228714.
During pregnancy, the mother's immune system has to tolerate the persistence of paternal alloantigens without affecting the anti-infectious immune response. Consequently, several mechanisms aimed at preventing allograft rejection, occur during a pregnancy. In fact, the early stages of pregnancy are characterized by the correct balance between inflammation and immune tolerance, in which proinflammatory cytokines contribute to both the remodeling of tissues and to neo-angiogenesis, thus, favoring the correct embryo implantation. In addition to the creation of a microenvironment able to support both immunological privilege and angiogenesis, the trophoblast invades normal tissues by sharing the same behavior of invasive tumors. Next, the activation of an immunosuppressive phase, characterized by an increase in the number of regulatory T (Treg) cells prevents excessive inflammation and avoids fetal immuno-mediated rejection. When these changes do not occur or occur incompletely, early pregnancy failure follows. All these events are characterized by an increase in different growth factors and cytokines, among which one of the most important is the angiogenic growth factor, namely placental growth factor (PlGF). PlGF is initially isolated from the human placenta. It is upregulated during both pregnancy and inflammation. In this review, we summarize current knowledge on the immunomodulatory effects of PlGF during pregnancy, warranting that both innate and adaptive immune cells properly support the early events of implantation and placental development. Furthermore, we highlight how an alteration of the immune response, associated with PlGF imbalance, can induce a hypertensive state and lead to the pre-eclampsia (PE).
在怀孕期间,母体的免疫系统必须耐受父系同种异体抗原的持续存在,而不影响抗感染的免疫反应。因此,在怀孕期间会发生几种旨在预防同种异体移植排斥的机制。事实上,妊娠早期的特点是炎症和免疫耐受之间的正确平衡,其中促炎细胞因子有助于组织重塑和新血管生成,从而有利于胚胎的正确着床。除了创建一个能够支持免疫特权和血管生成的微环境外,滋养层还通过与侵袭性肿瘤相同的侵袭行为侵犯正常组织。接下来,免疫抑制阶段的激活,其特征是调节性 T (Treg)细胞数量的增加,可防止过度炎症并避免胎儿免疫介导的排斥。当这些变化没有发生或不完全发生时,早期妊娠失败就会随之发生。所有这些事件的特征是不同生长因子和细胞因子的增加,其中最重要的一种是血管生成生长因子,即胎盘生长因子 (PlGF)。PlGF 最初从人胎盘分离出来。它在妊娠和炎症期间上调。在这篇综述中,我们总结了 PlGF 在怀孕期间的免疫调节作用的最新知识,证明先天和适应性免疫细胞都能正确地支持着床和胎盘发育的早期事件。此外,我们强调了免疫反应的改变,与 PlGF 失衡相关,如何引起高血压状态并导致先兆子痫 (PE)。