Lye - immune system

So one of the things that we’re particularly interested in my lab at the moment is the role of the mother’s immune system in the initiation of labour. So we know that the uterus is quiet during pregnancy. Its role is essentially to be protective environment for that developing baby. And then, right at the end of pregnancy, there’s a transformation. It stops being a quiet organ and actually develops highly synchronous intense uterine contractions that are going to affect the delivery of that baby. We really still don’t understand the entire process by which that transition is occurring, but in recent years, we’ve gained some evidence that the mother’s immune system plays a role in that process. So we know that labour in general is an inflammatory condition. There’s lots of chemicals called cytokines that are released in the blood and in the uterine tissues, which are signs of inflammation. But some of the research in my own lab has shown that the uterus itself at the end of pregnancy releases these cytokines and chemokines, these chemicals into the blood. And what they seem to do is two things. One is they activate maternal immune cells, white blood cells, in the mother’s peripheral circulation. And they also activate endothelial cells that line the blood vessels of the uterus. And under these conditions, the activated immune cells from the mother come to the uterine vasculature and they actually adhere or stick to those endothelial cells. And then actually cross from these blood vessels, into the uterine tissues themselves. They transmigrate across those tissues. And when they’re in the uterine tissues, they then differentiate into inflammatory immune cells and produce chemicals which can start those uterine contractions. So we believe that this role of the mother’s immune system is an important part in deciding the time that the baby is born.