It has been suggested that natural killer (NK) cell activity and Th1 immunitymay be involved in the pathogenesis of preeclampsia. This study aimed to investigate theimmunophenotypes of NK cells and type 1/type 2 immunity in both decidua and maternalperipheral blood between normal (n=11) and preeclamptic pregnant women (n=20) by flowcytometry. The results showed that no significant difference was observed between patientsand controls by detecting CD56⁺ CD69⁺ and CD56⁺ CD94⁺ NK cells in both peripheralblood and decidua. Moreover, in preeclamptic patients, decreased percentages of Tc2 andTh2 cells and the increased ratios of Tc1/Tc2 were determined in both decidua andmaternal peripheral blood. In addition, the ratio of Th1/Th2 in peripheral blood alsoincreased. There was no significant difference of immunophenotypes of uNK cells betweenpreeclampsia and normal pregnancy. Local decidua and systematic immunity did notcorrelate with each other. These results suggest that the type 1/type 2 immunity shifted totype 1 immunity including Th1 and Tc1 cells may contribute to the patho-genesis ofpreeclampsia. Full article

Loss of imprinting (LOI) of insulin-like growth factor II gene (IGF2) is anepigenetic abnormality associated with human diseases. However, little is known about thecharacteristics of IGF2 imprinting in newborn cord blood cells. METHODS: A total of 923cord blood samples from term singletons and related clinical data were collected; IGF2imprinting status in 273 specimens were successfully analyzed using RT-PCR andrestriction fragment length polymorphism. RESULTS: LOI of IGF2 was detected in 20.9%of informative samples. The mean birth weights (BW) in the LOI and the normal imprintinggroups were 3462.7 ± 460.2 g and 3363.7 ± 427.7 g, respectively. The abdominal perimetersin the LOI group tended to be larger than that in the normal imprinting group. Pregnancycomplications, delivery modes, newborn diseases, occurrences of malignant tumors ingrandparents, and other maternal factors were not associated with LOI of IGF2. 22.2% ofthe infants with IGF2 LOI also showed LOI in their father’s lymphocytes while 21.4% intheir mother’s lymphocytes. CONCLUSIONS: About 20% of Han Chinese newbornsindicated LOI of IGF2 in their cord blood lymphocytes that may represent the epigeneticcharacteristics in this ethnic group. While IGF2 LOI tends to be weakly inherited between parents and offspring, abnormal imprinting seems to be statistically unrelated with phenotypes of newborns, although it might have an association with later phenotypes of infants. Full article