Pregnancy confers partner-specific protection against complications in future pregnancy that
parallel persistence of fetal microchimeric cells (FMcs) in mothers after parturition. We show�…

Exposure to maternal tissue during in utero development imprints tolerance to
immunologically foreign non-inherited maternal antigens (NIMA) that persists into adulthood�…

Pregnancy is an intricately orchestrated process where immune effector cells with fetal
specificity are selectively silenced. This requires the sustained expansion of immune�…

Immunological identity is traditionally defined by genetically encoded antigens, with equal
maternal and paternal contributions as a result of Mendelian inheritance. However, vertically�…

During mammalian pregnancy, immune cells are vertically transferred from mother to fetus.
The functional role of these maternal microchimeric cells (MMc) in the offspring is mostly�…

Pregnancy stimulates induced Foxp3 expression among maternal CD4+ T cells with fetal
specificity. Although sustained maternal regulatory CD4+ T cell (Treg) expansion is essential�…

Trafficking of fetal cells into the maternal circulation begins very early in pregnancy and the
effects of this cell traffic are longlasting. All types of fetal cells, including stem cells, cross the�…

As the immune system develops, T cells are selected or regulated to become tolerant of self
antigens and reactive against foreign antigens. In mice, the induction of such tolerance is�…

Although pregnancy confers unique susceptibility to infection, the pregnancy-associated
immune defects that erode host defense remain largely undefined. Herein, we demonstrate�…

Fetal cells circulate in pregnant women and persist in blood and tissue for decades post-
partum. The mother thus becomes chimeric. Factors that may influence such fetal cell�…