Progesterone promotes maternal-fetal tolerance by reducing human maternal T-cell polyfunctionality and inducing a specific cytokine profile.

ABSTRACT: Progesterone is a steroid hormone essential for the maintenance of human pregnancy, and its actions are thought to include promoting maternal immune tolerance of the semiallogenic fetus. We report that exposure of maternal T cells to progesterone at physiological doses induced a unique skewing of the cytokine production profile of CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells, with reductions not only in potentially deleterious IFN-γ and TNF-α production but also in IL-10 and IL-5. Conversely, production of IL-4 was increased. Maternal T cells also became less polyfunctional, focussing cytokine production toward profiles including IL-4. This was accompanied by reduced T-cell proliferation. Using fetal and viral antigen-specific CD8(+) T-cell clones, we confirmed that this as a direct, nonantigen-specific effe

SUBMITTER: Lissauer D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4833190 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature