Abstract
It has been suggested that natural killer (NK) cell activity and Th1 immunitymay be involved in the pathogenesis of preeclampsia. This study aimed to investigate theimmunophenotypes of NK cells and type 1/type 2 immunity in both decidua and maternalperipheral blood between normal (n=11) and preeclamptic pregnant women (n=20) by flowcytometry. The results showed that no significant difference was observed between patientsand controls by detecting CD56+ CD69+ and CD56+ CD94+ NK cells in both peripheralblood and decidua. Moreover, in preeclamptic patients, decreased percentages of Tc2 andTh2 cells and the increased ratios of Tc1/Tc2 were determined in both decidua andmaternal peripheral blood. In addition, the ratio of Th1/Th2 in peripheral blood alsoincreased. There was no significant difference of immunophenotypes of uNK cells betweenpreeclampsia and normal pregnancy. Local decidua and systematic immunity did notcorrelate with each other. These results suggest that the type 1/type 2 immunity shifted totype 1 immunity including Th1 and Tc1 cells may contribute to the patho-genesis ofpreeclampsia.
Highlights
Preeclampsia is the leading cause of pregnancy-related maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality
No differences were detected in the percentages of uterine NK (uNK) cells subsets between preeclampsia and normal pregnancies (p > 0.05)
The present results showed that the percentages of CD56brightCD16- and CD56dimCD16+ uNK cell subsets in decidua lymphocytes were about 18 % and 16 % respectively, and the percentage of CD56brightCD16uNK cells was significantly higher than that in peripheral blood (Table 2)
Summary
Preeclampsia is the leading cause of pregnancy-related maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality. The pathogenesis of this disorder remains obscure. Immune maladaptation may cause shallow invasion of spiral arteries. Decidual NK cells have a diverse role in pregnancy, including regulating excessive trophoblast invasion into the deciduas and formation of uterine spiral arteries after implantation. CD56brightCD16- NK cells have prominent cytoplasmic granules and are minimally cytotoxic, while CD56dimCD16+ NK cells are more cytotoxic [8]. It is unclear whether the percentage of these subsets was changed in preeclampsia
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