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Chapter 16 - Fertile soil or no man’s land:
from Section 6: - Genetics
- By David Haig
Edited by Robert Pijnenborg, Ivo Brosens, Roberto Romero
Book:

Placental Bed Disorders

Published online:

06 July 2010

Print publication:

03 June 2010, pp 165-173
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Summary

At the site where the placenta implants there is intermingling of fetal trophoblast cells with maternal tissues. Uterine natural killer (uNK) cells are defined by the high expression of the surface marker CD56 so they are designated CD56superbright. NK cells are not a feature of the myometrium so the behavior of trophoblast in the deeper part of the uterus is independent of their influence. A further potential site where maternal immune cells can interact with endovascular trophoblast is in the spiral arteries in the decidua basalis. All uNK cells express high levels of the inhibitory receptor CD94/NKG2A whose ligand is HLA-E. HLA-G is a non-classical HLA class I molecule that was identified and found to be expressed by trophoblast cells nearly 20 years ago. The overall conclusion is that the local immunity in the human implantation site is an unusual one that is reflected in the cell types present.