Stephens Victoria R, Horner Kensley B, Avila Walter M, Spicer Sabrina K, Chinni Riya, Bernabe Emily B, Hinton Antentor O, Damo Steven M, Eastman Alison J, McCallister Monique M, Osteen Kevin G, Gaddy Jennifer A
Department of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States.
Department of Life and Physical Sciences, Fisk University, Nashville, TN, United States.
Front Immunol. 2024 Dec 10;15:1497405. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2024.1497405. eCollection 2024.
Exposure to environmental contaminants can result in profound effects on the host immune system. One class of environmental toxicants, known as dioxins, are persistent environmental contaminants termed "forever chemicals". The archetype toxicant from this group of chemicals is 2, 3, 7, 8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), an immunotoxicant that activates the aryl-hydrocarbon receptor pathway leading to a variety of changes in immune cell responses. Immune cell functions are crucial to the development and maintenance of healthy reproduction. Immune cells facilitate tolerance between at the maternal-fetal interface between the parent and the semi-allogenic fetus and help defend the gravid reproductive tract from infectious assault. Epidemiological studies reveal that exposure to environmental contaminants (such as TCDD) are linked to adverse reproductive health outcomes including endometriosis, placental inflammation, and preterm birth. However, little is known about the molecular mechanisms that underpin how environmental toxicant exposures impact immune functions at the maternal-fetal interface or within the reproductive tract in general. This review presents the most recent published work that studies interactions between dioxin or TCDD exposure, the host immune system, and reproduction.
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