Chronic schistosomiasis during pregnancy epigenetically reprograms T-cell differentiation in offspring of infected mothers
Research output: Contribution to journal › Research article › Contributed › peer-review
Contributors
Abstract
Schistosomiasis is a nontransplacental helminth infection. Chronic infection during pregnancy suppresses allergic airway responses in offspring. We addressed the question whether in utero exposure to chronic schistosome infection (Reg phase) in mice affects B-cell and T-cell development. Therefore, we focused our analyses on T-cell differentiation capacity induced by epigenetic changes in promoter regions of signature cytokines in offspring. Here, we show that naïve T cells from offspring of schistosome infected female mice had a strong capacity to differentiate into TH 1 cells, whereas TH 2 differentiation was impaired. In accordance, reduced levels of histone acetylation of the IL-4 promoter regions were observed in naïve T cells. To conclude, our mouse model revealed distinct epigenetic changes within the naïve T-cell compartment affecting TH 2 and TH 1 cell differentiation in offspring of mothers with chronic helminth infection. These findings could eventually help understand how helminths alter T-cell driven immune responses induced by allergens, bacterial or viral infections, as well as vaccines.
Details
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 841-847 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | European Journal of Immunology |
Volume | 47 |
Issue number | 5 |
Publication status | Published - May 2017 |
Peer-reviewed | Yes |
Externally published | Yes |
External IDs
Scopus | 85017588925 |
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ORCID | /0000-0001-8218-2538/work/173988788 |
Keywords
Sustainable Development Goals
Keywords
- Acetylation, Animals, Cell Differentiation, Chronic Disease, Cytokines/genetics, Epigenesis, Genetic, Female, Histones/metabolism, Interleukin-4/genetics, Lymphocyte Activation, Mice, Mothers, Pregnancy, Pregnancy Complications, Parasitic/immunology, Promoter Regions, Genetic, Schistosomiasis/immunology, T-Lymphocytes/immunology, Th1 Cells/immunology, Th2 Cells/immunology