Immunology I

Sing Sing Way

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, USA

Enhanced tolerance of individuals to their mothers compared with their fathers is consistently shown in human epidemiological studies. This parallels the vertical transfer and long-term persistence of maternal cells that establish microchimerism in offspring. My presentation will discuss shared maternal tolerance phenotypes and presence of maternal microchimeric cells in other mammalian species, including rodents, and ongoing use of animal models to investigate what microchimeric cells do and how their work. These include differentiation of CD4+ T cells into immune-suppressive regulatory T cells, cross generational resiliency against fetal wastage, differentiation distinctions primed by maternal compared with fetal microchimeric cells, and the remarkable interplay between these two types of exceptionally rare cells. Additional considerations will include whether phenotypically wildtype microchimeric cells can replace missing proteins in the context of autosomal recessive disorders and new adaptable platforms for experimental manipulation of microchimeric cells, including conditional depletion based on cell-lineage, to gain further insights on what microchimeric cells do and how their work.