Chronic schistosomiasis during pregnancy epigenetically reprograms T-cell differentiation in offspring of infected mothers.
Eur J Immunol
; 47(5): 841-847, 2017 05.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-28271497
ABSTRACT
Schistosomiasis is a nontransplacental helminth infection. Chronic infection during pregnancy suppresses allergic airway responses in offspring. We addressed the question whether in utero exposure to chronic schistosome infection (Reg phase) in mice affects B-cell and T-cell development. Therefore, we focused our analyses on T-cell differentiation capacity induced by epigenetic changes in promoter regions of signature cytokines in offspring. Here, we show that naïve T cells from offspring of schistosome infected female mice had a strong capacity to differentiate into TH 1 cells, whereas TH 2 differentiation was impaired. In accordance, reduced levels of histone acetylation of the IL-4 promoter regions were observed in naïve T cells. To conclude, our mouse model revealed distinct epigenetic changes within the naïve T-cell compartment affecting TH 2 and TH 1 cell differentiation in offspring of mothers with chronic helminth infection. These findings could eventually help understand how helminths alter T-cell driven immune responses induced by allergens, bacterial or viral infections, as well as vaccines.
Key words
Full text:
1
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Schistosomiasis
/
Lymphocyte Activation
/
T-Lymphocytes
/
Cell Differentiation
/
Pregnancy Complications, Parasitic
/
Epigenesis, Genetic
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
Limits:
Animals
/
Pregnancy
Language:
En
Year:
2017
Type:
Article