Transplacental migration of maternal natural killer and T cells assessed by ex vivo human placenta perfusion

Abstract

Introduction: The transplacental passage of cells between a mother and her fetus, known as microchimerism, is a less studied process during pregnancy. The frequency of maternal microchimeric cells in fetal tissues in physiological pregnancies and mechanisms responsible for transplacental cell trafficking are poorly understood. This study aimed to evaluate the placental trafficking of maternal peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) using human ex vivo placenta perfusion.

Methods: Ten placentas and maternal PBMC were obtained after healthy pregnancies. Flow cytometry was used to characterize PBMC subtypes. They showed a higher percentage of CD3⁺ T cells compared to CD56⁺ NK cells. The isolated PBMC were stained with a fluorescent dye and perfused through the maternal circuit of the placenta in an ex vivo perfusion system. Subsequent immunofluorescence staining for CD3⁺ T cells and CD56⁺ NK cells was performed on placental tissue sections, and the number of detectable PBMC in different tissue areas was counted using fluorescence microscopy.

Results: The applied method allowed discrimination of perfused autologous maternal cells from cells resident in the placenta before perfusion. Further, it allows additional immunohistochemical labelling and distinction of immune cell subsets. Perfused PBMC were detected in all analyzed placentas, mostly in contact to the syncytiotrophoblast. CD3⁺ T cells were identified more frequently than CD56⁺ NK cells and some CD3⁺ T cells were found inside fetoplacental tissues and vasculature. The results indicate that also other PBMCs than T or NK cells adhere to or enter villous tissue, but they have not been specified in this analysis.

Discussion: Previous studies have detected maternal cells in the fetal circulation which we could mimick in our ex vivo placenta perfusion experiments with fluorescence labelled autologous maternal PBMC. The applied experimental settings did not allow comparison of transmigration abilities of PBMC subsets, but slight modifications of the model will permit further studies of cell transfer processes and microchimerism in pregnancy.

Keywords: Cell trafficking; Immune cells; Microchimerism; Placenta perfusion; Placental transfer; Pregnancy.