Maternal-fetal Immune Responses in Pregnant Women Infected with SARS-CoV-2

Overview

Journal Nat Commun

Specialty Biology

Date 2022 Jan 19

PMID 35042863

Authors

Valeria Garcia-Flores

Roberto Romero

Yi Xu

Kevin R Theis

Marcia Arenas-Hernandez

Derek Miller

Azam Peyvandipour

Gaurav Bhatti

Jose Galaz

Meyer Gershater

Dustyn Levenson

Errile Pusod

Li Tao

David Kracht

Violetta Florova

Yaozhu Leng

Kenichiro Motomura

Robert Para

Megan Faucett

Chaur-Dong Hsu

Gary Zhang

Adi L Tarca

Roger Pique-Regi

Nardhy Gomez-Lopez

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Pregnant women represent a high-risk population for severe/critical COVID-19 and mortality. However, the maternal-fetal immune responses initiated by SARS-CoV-2 infection, and whether this virus is detectable in the placenta, are still under investigation. Here we show that SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy primarily induces unique inflammatory responses at the maternal-fetal interface, which are largely governed by maternal T cells and fetal stromal cells. SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy is also associated with humoral and cellular immune responses in the maternal blood, as well as with a mild cytokine response in the neonatal circulation (i.e., umbilical cord blood), without compromising the T-cell repertoire or initiating IgM responses. Importantly, SARS-CoV-2 is not detected in the placental tissues, nor is the sterility of the placenta compromised by maternal viral infection. This study provides insight into the maternal-fetal immune responses triggered by SARS-CoV-2 and emphasizes the rarity of placental infection.

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