T-cells, immune cells that normally protect us, appear to play a key role in the development of preeclampsia, says a young scientist who wants to find a better way to intervene in the syndrome that can have lifelong consequences for mother and child.
These key immune cells appear to contribute to a vicious circle in which the placenta does not develop an adequate thoroughfare for mother’s blood, which is packed with essential nutrients and oxygen, to reach her baby. Mother’s blood pressure increases to try to force more of the essentials through; inflammation and tissue damage develop; and T cells move in to help. But the immune cells instead multiply the inflammation, blood vessel dysfunction and resulting kidney damage in the mother and increase the risk of premature birth or worse for baby.
“Everything should be in balance and what I think is happening in preeclampsia is we are moving more toward the proinflammatory, prooxidative stress side of things. It’s full on the gas, no brake involved,” says Dr. John Henry Dasinger, senior postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Physiology at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University.
In this scenario, the typically protective T cells recruit even more T cells which produce even more reactive oxygen species, or ROS, in their likely well-intended effort to clean up the mess. ROS, a byproduct of the body’s use of oxygen that at low levels serves as an important signaling mechanism for cells, is toxic at high levels and in preeclampsia Dasinger has evidence T cells are producing a lot of ROS.
Blood vessels further constrict, and production of the powerful blood vessel dilator nitric oxide goes down in this “recipe for disaster,” Dasinger says. “Somehow if we could blunt their response, that could be helpful,” Dasinger says of where his findings point.
Right now, there is a rather long list of risk factors for preeclampsia, that includes things like the mother already being hypertensive and/or obese, but no definitive test to determine which women will develop it and better treatment is needed for those who do.
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