Neutrophils Dominate the Cervical Immune Cell Population in Pregnancy and Their Transcriptome Correlates With the Microbial Vaginal Environment.

ABSTRACT: The cervicovaginal environment in pregnancy is proposed to influence risk of spontaneous preterm birth. The environment is shaped both by the resident microbiota and local inflammation driven by the host response (epithelia, immune cells and mucous). The contributions of the microbiota, metabolome and host defence peptides have been investigated, but less is known about the immune cell populations and how they may respond to the vaginal environment. Here we investigated the maternal immune cell populations at the cervicovaginal interface in early to mid-pregnancy (10-24 weeks of gestation, samples from N = 46 women), we confirmed neutrophils as the predominant cell type and characterised associations between the cervical neutrophil transcriptome and the cervicovaginal metagenome (

SUBMITTER: Mohd Zaki A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9237529 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature