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Bidirectional cytokine interactions in the maternal-fetal relationship: is successful pregnancy a TH2 phenomenon?
T G Wegmann1, H Lin, L Guilbert
1Dept of Immunology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.
Immunology Today
|July 1, 1993
Abstract:
Pregnant females are susceptible to intracellular pathogens and are biased towards humoral rather than cell-mediated immunity. Since TH1 cytokines compromise pregnancy and TH2 cytokines are produced at the maternal-fetal interface, we hypothesize that these TH2 cytokines inhibit TH1 responses, improving fetal survival but impairing responses against some pathogens.