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Respective Roles and Interactions of T Lymphocyte and PGE 2 ‐Mediated Monocyte Suppressive Activities in Human Newborns and Mothers at the Time of Delivery
Author(s) -
DURANDY A.,
FISCHER A.,
MAMAS S.,
DRAY F.,
GRISCELLI C.
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
american journal of reproductive immunology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1600-0897
pISSN - 0271-7352
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0897.1982.tb00153.x
Subject(s) - monocyte , lymphocyte , t lymphocyte , immunology , microbiology and biotechnology , biology , medicine , immune system
Recently the concept of a poorly functional humoral immune response in the newborn was proposed. Data have been presented indicating that the impaired newborn B cell maturation, as shown in vitro in a pokeweed mitogen‐induced B cell maturation system, is due both to an immaturity of lymphocyte subsets and to an increased suppressive T activity. In the present work, we present evidence that there exists a predominance of a naturally occurring T lymphocyte suppressive activity in the cord blood in that the removal of the suppressive activity by irradiation allows a normal maturation of newborn B cells. Such normal maturation of newborn B cells can also be obtained using mixed cultures of adult T cells and newborn B cells. Newborn suppressor T cells belong to both EAγ(+) and EAγ(—) fractions, and it is not known whether these two groups do or do not belong to different subsets. The PGE 2 ‐dependent monocyte suppressive activity does not play any role in the suppression observed in newborns since newborn monocytes are poorly suppressive and since they produce a smaller amount of PGE 2 than adult monocytes. Some observations suggest, on the contrary, that the suppressive T lymphocytes can regulate the level of the PGE 2 ‐dependent monocyte suppressive activity. It should be noticed that similar observations about T lymphocyte and PGE 2 ‐dependent monocyte suppressive activities have been made at the same time using mothers' cells. These observations suggest the possibility that such changes in B cell immune regulation may result from an interaction between maternal and fetal lymphoid cells.