Department of General Pediatrics and Neonatology, Saarland University Medical Center, 66421 Homburg, Germany.
Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Saarland University Medical Center, 66421 Homburg, Germany.
Int J Mol Sci. 2023 Jul 15;24(14):11511. doi: 10.3390/ijms241411511.
Cord blood represents a link between intrauterine and early extrauterine development. Cord blood cells map an important time frame in human immune imprinting processes. It is unknown whether the sex of the newborn affects the lymphocyte subpopulations in the cord blood. Nine B and twenty-one T cell subpopulations were characterized using flow cytometry in human cord blood from sixteen male and twenty-one female newborns, respectively. Except for transitional B cells and naïve B cells, frequencies of B cell counts across all subsets was higher in the cord blood of male newborns than in female newborns. The frequency of naïve thymus-negative Th cells was significantly higher in male cord blood, whereas the remaining T cell subpopulations showed a higher count in the cord blood of female newborns. Our study is the first revealing sex differences in the B and T cell subpopulations of human cord blood. These results indicate that sex might have a higher impact for the developing immune system, urging the need to expand research in this area.
脐带血代表了宫内和早期宫外发育之间的联系。脐带血细胞描绘了人类免疫印记过程中的一个重要时间框架。目前尚不清楚新生儿的性别是否会影响脐带血中的淋巴细胞亚群。本研究使用流式细胞术分别对 16 名男性和 21 名女性新生儿的脐带血中的 9 个 B 细胞亚群和 21 个 T 细胞亚群进行了特征描述。除了过渡性 B 细胞和幼稚 B 细胞外，男性新生儿脐带血中所有 B 细胞计数亚群的频率均高于女性新生儿。幼稚的胸腺阴性 Th 细胞在男性脐带血中的频率明显更高，而其余 T 细胞亚群在女性新生儿的脐带血中计数更高。本研究首次揭示了人类脐带血中 B 和 T 细胞亚群的性别差异。这些结果表明，性别可能对正在发育的免疫系统有更大的影响，这促使我们需要在这一领域扩大研究。
