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Cytokine and Its Downstream Signaling in Pregnancy and Fetal Development
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Cytokine and Its Downstream Signaling in Pregnancy and Fetal Development

A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Immunology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2023) | Viewed by 4274

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Manoj Kumar Pandey

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA
Interests: genetic and neurodegenerative diseases; complement; cytokines; innate and adaptive immunity
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Several immune factors are responsible for a successful pregnancy. Immune cells, interferons, and cytokines participate as mediators of coordinated communications to promote healthy pregnancy. In most women with alloimmune cause of recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA), increased sharing of human leukocyte antigens (HLA) that may prohibit the mother from making anti-paternal cyto-toxic antibodies (APCA), anti-idiotypic antibodies (Ab2), and mixed lymphocyte reaction blocking antibodies (MLR-Bf) is present. Overactivity of T helper-1 (Th-1) cytokines and natural killer (NK) cells has been also reported to be the major alloimmune cause of recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA). It has been revealed that paternal lymphocyte immunotherapy may play a significant role in the prevention of alloimmune cause of fetal loss in women with RSA. These alloimmune parameters are found to be suppressed in successful immunotherapy, which is comparable to normal pregnancy.

This Special Issue focuses on recent advances in immune responses that are necessary to promote healthy pregnancy and those that lead to congenital disorders and pregnancy complications, especially on the role of cytokine and its downstream signaling. Understanding the contributions of the immune system in pregnancy and fetal development provides important insights into the pathogenesis underlying maternal and fetal diseases and sheds insights on possible targets for therapy.

Dr. Manoj Kumar Pandey
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • cytokine
  • recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA)
  • immune cells
  • inflammatory cytokines
  • pregnancy and fetal development

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 2350 KiB  
Article
Maternal Inflammatory Biomarkers during Pregnancy and Early Life Neurodevelopment in Offspring: Results from the VDAART Study
by Rachel S. Kelly, Kathleen Lee-Sarwar, Yih-Chieh Chen, Nancy Laranjo, Raina Fichorova, Su H. Chu, Nicole Prince, Jessica Lasky-Su, Scott T. Weiss and Augusto A. Litonjua
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2022, 23(23), 15249; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms232315249 - 3 Dec 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1640
Abstract
Maternal infection and stress during the prenatal period have been associated with adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in offspring, suggesting that biomarkers of increased inflammation in the mothers may associate with poorer developmental outcomes. In 491 mother–child pairs from the Vitamin D Antenatal Asthma Reduction [...] Read more.
Maternal infection and stress during the prenatal period have been associated with adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in offspring, suggesting that biomarkers of increased inflammation in the mothers may associate with poorer developmental outcomes. In 491 mother–child pairs from the Vitamin D Antenatal Asthma Reduction Trial (VDAART), we investigated the association between maternal levels of two inflammatory biomarkers; interleukin-8 (IL-8) and C-Reactive Protein (CRP) during early (10–18 wks) and late (32–38 wks) pregnancy with offspring scores in the five domains of the Ages and Stages Questionnaire, a validated screening tool for assessing early life development. We identified a robust association between early pregnancy IL-8 levels and decreased fine-motor (β: −0.919, 95%CI: −1.425, −0.414, p = 3.9 × 10−4) and problem-solving skills at age two (β: −1.221, 95%CI: −1.904, −0.414, p = 4.9 × 10−4). Associations between IL-8 with other domains of development and those for CRP did not survive correction for multiple testing. Similarly, while there was some evidence that the detrimental effects of early pregnancy IL-8 were strongest in boys and in those who were not breastfed, these interactions were not robust to correction for multiple testing. However, further research is required to determine if other maternal inflammatory biomarkers associate with offspring neurodevelopment and work should continue to focus on the management of factors leading to increases in IL-8 levels in pregnant women. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cytokine and Its Downstream Signaling in Pregnancy and Fetal Development)
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16 pages, 4103 KiB  
Article
Elevated IL-6 and IL-22 in Early Pregnancy Are Associated with Worse Disease Course in Women with Inflammatory Bowel Disease
by Richard Y. Wu, Karren Xiao, Naomi Hotte, Parul Tandon, Yesmine Elloumi, Lindsy Ambrosio, Garett Dunsmore, Shokrollah Elahi, Karen I. Kroeker, Levinus A. Dieleman, Karen L. Madsen and Vivian Huang
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2022, 23(18), 10281; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms231810281 - 7 Sep 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1926
Abstract
Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), including Ulcerative Colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD), are inflammatory conditions of the intestinal tract that affect women in their reproductive years. Pregnancy affects Th1- and Th2-cytokines, but how these changes occur during pregnancy in IBD is unclear. We [...] Read more.
Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), including Ulcerative Colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD), are inflammatory conditions of the intestinal tract that affect women in their reproductive years. Pregnancy affects Th1- and Th2-cytokines, but how these changes occur during pregnancy in IBD is unclear. We performed a longitudinal profiling of serum cytokines in a cohort of 11 healthy pregnant women and 76 pregnant women with IBD from the first trimester of pregnancy to the first 12 months post-partum. Participants were monitored for biochemical disease activity (C-reactive protein [CRP] and fecal calprotectin [FCP]) and clinical activities. Maternal cytokines were measured using ELISA. We identified changes in Th1 and Th17 cytokines throughout pregnancy in healthy pregnant women. During pregnancy, maternal serum cytokine expressions were influenced by IBD, disease activity, and medications. Active UC was associated with an elevation in IL-21, whereas active CD was associated with elevated IFN-γ, IL-6, and IL-21. Interestingly, T1 serum cytokine levels of IL-22 (>0.624 pg/mL) and IL-6 (>0.648 pg/mL) were associated with worse IBD disease activity throughout pregnancy in women with UC and CD, respectively. This shows serum cytokines in pregnancy differ by IBD, disease activity, and medications. We show for the first time that T1 IL-22 and IL-6 correlate with IBD disease course throughout pregnancy. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cytokine and Its Downstream Signaling in Pregnancy and Fetal Development)
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