Maternal immune system which cotribute to the maintenance of pregnancy in the decidua

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It has been demonstrated that pregnancy induces the immunomodulation of cytokine responses away from Th1 paradigm and towards the Th2 paradigm. In this study, we demonstrated that the percentage of Th1 cells was lowest the decidua in early pregnancy and highest in endometrium during the proliferative phase followed by endometrium in the secretory phase. On the other hand, the percentage of Th2 cells was highest in the decidua in early pregnancy and lowest in the endometrium during the proliferative phase. We further demonstrated that not only Th2 cells but also Tc2 cells increased in the early pregnancy decidua. These results indicate the significance of Th2- and Tc2- type cells of the decidua in the maternal system, presumably through their production of cytokines which may contribute to the maintenance of pregnancy. We further studied the Th1/Th2 balance in abnormal pregnancy state preeclampsia. We found that Th2 cells were predominated in peripheral blood in the second and third trimester of normal pregnancy, Th1 cells predominated in preeclamptic patients. And we demonstrated that IL-12 production by monocytes regulates Th1/Th2 balance not only in normal pregnancy but also in preeclampsia. Our data suggest that Th2 dominant immune state contribute the maintenance of pregnancy and the disturbance of this delicate balance might result in abnormal pregnancy ; ie recurrent abortion and preeclampsia.