Pregnancy immune tolerance at the maternal-fetal interface

Abstract

Pregnancy is a natural process that poses an immunological challenge because non-self fetus must be accepted. During the pregnancy period, the fetus as ‘allograft’ inherits maternal and also paternal antigens. For successful and term pregnancy, the fetus is tolerated and nurtured enjoying immune privileges that minimize the risk of being rejected by maternal immune system. Multiple mechanisms contribute to tolerate the semi-allogeneic fetus. Here, we summarize the recent progresses on how the maternal immune system actively collaborates to maintain the immune balance and maternal-fetal tolerance.

Keywords:

• BMI
• CD4+ T cells
• dNK cells
• HLA
• IDO
• macrophages
• miRNAs
• pregnancy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by National key R&D program of China (grant number 2018YFC1004104), Guangdong Science and Technology Department (grant number 2019B030316023), and Guangzhou Science. Technology Innovation Commission (grant number 201804020057).