Immunology of Pregnancy

[Shiv A. Prasad]

In article <2arjdtINNps4 at uwm.edu> dpercy at csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Dan S Percy) writes:
>	A state of tolerance exists between a mother and its developing
>fetus.  What are some of the mechanisms that are thought to be responsible
>for this tolerance.  Any comments/suggested readings will be appreciated.

In a recent Immunol. Today (the one with the Rafael-esque) cover, there's an
article about immunity at the fetal-maternal interface, or something to that
effect.  Anyway, one of the prevailing hypotheses is that pregnancy shifts 
the mother's immune balance towards a Th-2 like state to avoid nasty IFNg-
mediated things like tissue rejection etc, inflammation, etc.

--
Shiv A. Prasad				shiv at lenti.med.umn.edu
Dept. of Microbiology			pras0005 at student.tc.umn.edu
Univ. of Minnesota