Maternal-Fetal Tolerance
We are studying, in collaboration with the Gardner Lab, the role of AIRE-expressing cells in the maintenance and disruption of a healthy pregnancy. We are investigating fetal immune development to understand the contribution of the fetal immune system to pregnancy complications and prenatal disease.
Healthy pregnancy relies on numerous mechanisms of tolerance that prevent the mother and fetus from mounting immune responses against each other. In addition, pregnancy requires maternal immune tolerance to a unique set of pregnancy associated self-antigens, which are encoded in the maternal genome, but have not been produced since the mother herself was a fetus with a placenta. We are studying the role of Autoimmune Regulator gene (AIRE) in pregnancy, in collaboration with the Gardner Lab, to understand the role of Aire-expressing cells in preventing pregnancy complications such as intrauterine growth restriction.
Pregnancy is a unique time window of prenatal immune development to satisfy the need to protect the fetus from mounting immune responses to self and to non-inherited maternal antigens during gestation. We are investigating fetal immune development at baseline and during pregnancy perturbations to understand the contribution of the fetal immune system to pregnancy complications. We also analyze fetal tolerance to new antigens after prenatal exposure in preclinical experiments and as part of the analysis of patients enrolled in our ongoing clinical trials.