Maternal circulating leukocytes display early chemotactic responsiveness during late gestation.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Parturition has been widely described as an immunological response; however, it is unknown how this is triggered. We hypothesized that an early event in parturition is an increased responsiveness of peripheral leukocytes to chemotactic stimuli expressed by reproductive tissues, and this precedes expression of tissue chemotactic activity, uterine activation and the systemic progesterone/estradiol shift.

Methods

Tissues and blood were collected from pregnant Long-Evans rats on gestational days (GD) 17, 20 and 22 (term gestation). We employed a validated Boyden chamber assay, flow cytometry, quantitative real time-polymerase chain reaction, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays.

Results

We found that GD20 maternal peripheral leukocytes migrated more than thos

SUBMITTER: Gomez-Lopez N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3561147 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature