E-Mail
An international research team led by the University of British Columbia (UBC) has uncovered for the first time the importance of a small gland tucked behind the sternum that works to prevent miscarriage and diabetes in pregnant women.
The organ in question is the thymus, identified in a study published today in the journal
Nature as playing a significant role in both metabolic control and immunity in pregnancy.
How the immune system adapts to support mother and fetus has puzzled researchers for decades. The study conducted by an international research team, including UBC s Dr. Josef Penninger reveals an answer. The researchers have found that female sex hormones instruct important changes in the thymus, a central organ of the immune system, to produce specialized cells called Tregs to deal with physiological changes that arise in pregnancy.
Date Time
New research highlights importance of thymus in successful pregnancies
How the immune system adapts to pregnancies has puzzled scientists for decades. Now, findings from an international group of researchers, led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, reveal important changes that occur in the thymus to prevent miscarriages and gestational diabetes. The results are published in the journal Nature.
The thymus is a central organ of the immune system where specialised immune cells called T lymphocytes mature. These cells, commonly referred to as T cells, then migrate into the blood stream and tissues to help combat pathogens and cancer. An important T cell subset, known as a regulatory T cell or Treg, is also produced in the thymus. The main function of a Treg is to help regulate other immune cells.
Credit: @IMBA/Kulcsar
Female sex hormones instruct the thymus, a central organ of the immune system, to produce specialized cells called Tregs to deal with physiological changes to arise during pregnancy, the study revealed. The researchers also found that RANK, a receptor expressed in a part of the thymus called the epithelium, is the key molecule behind this mechanism. The study is an international research effort including scientists from IMBA, the University of British Columbia, the Karolinska Institutet and the Medical University of Vienna. We knew RANK was expressed in the thymus, but its role in pregnancy was unknown, says the study s senior author Josef Penninger, IMBA group leader and founding director, who is now director of the Life Sciences Institute of the University of British Columbia. To gain deeper insights, the authors studied mice where RANK had been deleted from the thymus. The absence of RANK prevented the production of Tregs in the thymus during pregnancy
A little-known organ in the chest called the thymus may be crucial in protecting pregnant women and their unborn children, a study shows.
The organ is found in the centre of the chest and scientists now believe it plays a key role in regulating the immune system during pregnancy.
Growing a foetus for nine months poses a huge immunological challenge, and experts have never fully understood how the female body copes.
Researchers now say that protecting the thymus and ensuring it functions properly during pregnancy could prevent miscarriages and diabetes in pregnant women.
Scroll down for video
A little-known organ in the chest called the thymus may be crucial in protecting pregnant women and their unborn children, a study shows (stock)
E-Mail
IMAGE: Magdalena Paolino, assistant professor and team leader at the Department of Medicine Solna, Karolinska Institutet. view more
Credit: Ragnar Söderberg Foundation
How the immune system adapts to pregnancies has puzzled scientists for decades. Now, findings from an international group of researchers, led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, reveal important changes that occur in the thymus to prevent miscarriages and gestational diabetes. The results are published in the journal
Nature.
The thymus is a central organ of the immune system where specialised immune cells called T lymphocytes mature. These cells, commonly referred to as T cells, then migrate into the blood stream and tissues to help combat pathogens and cancer. An important T cell subset, known as a regulatory T cell or Treg, is also produced in the thymus. The main function of a Treg is to help regulate other immune cells.