Understanding nature’s transplant to reduce miscarriage

Larry Chamley, Peter Stone

Organ transplants are a modern medical miracle, but the transplanted organ only survives rejection if the transplant recipient is treated with potent immune suppressing drugs. But nature came up with her own transplant miracle in the form of pregnancy – and nature’s transplant survives quite happily for nine months without immunosuppressive drugs.

In pregnancy, the fetus is genetically half related to the father and is therefore immunologically a tissue transplant. Dr Larry Chamley and his research team are investigating how it is that nature’s transplant avoids rejection by the maternal immune system without immunosuppressant drugs. The team recently found that cells that are shed from the placenta during normal pregnancy induce a natural immunosuppressive enzyme in cells of the maternal immune system. This is likely to be one important mechanism that allows the survival of nature’s transplant. Our research in this area aims to understand how normal pregnancies avoid generating an immune response, and with this knowledge we hope to restore the natural mechanisms for women suffering from recurrent miscarriage in the future.

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