Maternal influence on infant immunity

Although there is considerable evidence for a role of early-life microbial exposures for immune (and allergy) development during childhood, other early exposures may also influence the developing immune system. In particular, exposure to an altered intrauterine environment due to maternal immune-mediated disease could be of importance.

In previous work, we have shown that maternal disease influences neonatal immunity, and monocytes in particular. Even if the neonatal monocyte population is generally well functioning at birth (Sohlberg et al 2011), we observed impaired monocyte functional responses to microbial (bacterially derived) agents in children with allergic mothers (Amoudruz et al 2005). This was partly explained by a poor phosphorylation of intracellular signaling intermediates (Saghafian-Hedengren et al 2008). These alterations were independent of paternal allergy, suggesting a role for in utero exposures.

Breast-milk provides the newborn with a rich immunological cocktail providing passive immunity during the first vulnerable months of life. It has also been suggested that breast-milk contents can influence the child’s developing immune system, which is supported by our findings (Amoudruz et al 2009, Holmlund et al 2010).

In addition we have shown that other immune-mediated/associated disorders influence immune function during pregnancy as well as the intra-uterine environment (Bachmayer et al 2006, Björkander 2012), with possible consequences for neonatal immunity.

We continue to investigate how maternal immune-mediated diseases influence characteristics and function of specific B- and T- cell compartments in their children, and we further try to elucidate the underlying mechanisms behind this maternal-neonatal immune influence.

References

Björkander, S., Bremme, K., Persson, J.O., van Vollenhoven, R., Sverremark-Ekström, E., & Holmlund, U. (2012). Pregnancy-associated inflammatory markers are elevated in pregnant women with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. Cytokine. 59(2):392-99

Sohlberg, E., Saghafian-Hedengren, S., Bremme, K., & Sverremark-Ekström, E. (2011). Cord blood monocyte subsets are similar to adult and show potent peptidoglycan-stimulated cytokine responses. Immunology. 133(1):41-50.

Holmlund, U., Amoudruz, P., Johansson, M., Ongoiba, A., Kayentao, K., Traoré, B., Doumbo, S., Schollin, J., Doumbo, O., Montgomery, S., & Sverremark-Ekström E. (2010). Maternal country of origin, breast milk characteristics and potential influences on immunity in offspring. Clin Exp Immunol. 162(3):500-09.

Amoudruz, P., Holmlund, U., Schollin, J., Sverremark-Ekström, E., & Montgomery, S. (2009). Maternal country of birth and previous pregnancies are associated with breast milk characteristics. Ped Allergy Immunol. 20(1):19-29.

Saghafian-Hedengren, S., Holmlund, U., Amoudruz, P., Nilsson, C., & Sverremark-Ekström, E. (2008). Maternal allergy influences p38-MAPKinase activity following microbial challenge in CD14+ monocytes from 2-year old children. Clin Exp Allergy. 38(3):449-57.

Bachmayer, N., Rafik Hamad, R., Liszka, L., Bremme, K., & Sverremark-Ekström, E. (2006). Aberrant uterine natural killer (NK)-cell expression and altered placental and serum levels of the NK-cell promoting cytokine interleukin-12 in pre-eclampsia. Am J Reprod Immunol. 56(5-6):292-301.

Amoudruz, P., Holmlund, U., Malmström, V., Trollmo, C., Bremme, K., Scheynius, A., & Sverremark-Ekström, E. (2005).  Neonatal immune responses to microbial stimuli – is there an influence of maternal allergy? J Allergy Clin Immunol. 115(6):1304-10.