A pivotal role for galectin-1 in fetomaternal tolerance

Sandra M Blois et al. Nature medicine 13(12), 2007, 1450-57

Speaker: 黃惠芝                        Place: Room 601

Commentator: 陳玉玲 老師              Date: 2008/3/19 15:00-16:00

Abstract:

Pregnancy requires the coordination of immune and endocrine systems. A pregnant woman has fetal alloantigens encoded by paternal genes in her uterus. There are several mechanisms to prevent maternal immune systems against fetus called fetomaternal tolerance. Previously paper showed the dendritic cells (DCs) are the important cells to direct immune responses to T helper type 2 (T_H2) cytokine profile and induce the production of regulatory T cells to maintain the tolerance¹. Galectin-1 (Gal-1), an immunoregulatory glycan-binding protein, express abundantly in the uterus and highly in gestational trophoblastic disease². Therefore, the authors want to know what is the role of Gal-1 in fetomaternal tolerance. The authors discovered DBA/2J-mated CBA/J mice of sound stress-triggered abortion expressed lower galectin-1 in the myometrium and decidua of the uterus than control mice. They treated recombinant Gal-1 to sound-challenged mice and found the fetal lose were decreased. Uterine DCs of stress-challenged mice were in mature status and produced T_H1 dominant cytokines when cocultured with naïve T cells. However, Gal-1 induced tolerogenic DCs. Then, the authors adoptively transferred the uterine DCs of Gal-1-treated mice to stress-challenged mice could abrogate stress-induced fetal loss and increase the percentage of uterus CD4⁺CD25⁺IL-10⁺ T cells. They also confirmed the Gal-1 and progesterone had the effect on each other expression reciprocally. These data reveals that Gal-1 and progesterone mutually maintain the fetalmaternal tolerance.

References

1. Miyazaki, S. et al. Predominance of TH2-promoting dendritic cells in early human pregnancy decidua. J. Leukoc. Biol. 74, 514–522 (2003). 

2. Peter Terness et al. Tolerance Signaling Molecules and Pregnancy: IDO, Galectins, and the Renaissance of Regulatory T Cells. Am J Reprod Immunol. 58(3):238-54 (2007).