FETUSES aren鈥檛 as defenceless as they seem 鈥� they may be armed to fight off viruses long before birth.
It was thought that fetal immune cells were too immature to be useful and that fetuses and newborns relied on antibodies provided by their mothers. Now David Vermijlen at the Institute for Medical Immunology in Brussels, Belgium, and his colleagues have shown that fetuses just 21 weeks old may be capable of fending off infections using their own immune cells. This could lead to new vaccines for newborns and unborn babies.
Vermijlen鈥檚 team analysed cord blood from 19 newborns infected with cytomegalovirus (CMV) 鈥� which can cause serious symptoms in infected infants and give fetuses brain damage 鈥� and 22 uninfected newborns. The team found that the number of gamma delta T-cells was higher in the CMV-infected babies, and that a greater proportion of these immune cells were activated.
Advertisement
When the team compared the types of immune cells activated in the fetus with those in the mother, there were clear differences, suggesting that fetuses generate an independent immune response to CMV (Journal of Experimental Medicine, ).
