Placental Inflammasome mRNA Levels Differ by Mode of Delivery and Fetal Sex

• DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2022.807750
• Publication Date: 2022-03-29T11:23:51Z
• Authors: Anya L. Arthurs; Melanie D. Smith; Mhyles D. Hintural; James Breen; Dylan McCullough; Francesca I. Thor...; Shalem Y. Leemaqz; Gustaaf A. Dekker; Tanja Jankovic-Ka...; Claire T. Roberts
• Keywords: Decidua; AIM2

Parturition signals the end of immune tolerance in pregnancy. Term labour is usually a sterile inflammatory process triggered by damage associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) as consequence functional progesterone withdrawal. Activation DAMPs recruits leukocytes and cytokine responses myometrium, decidua, cervix fetal membranes. Emerging evidence shows components inflammasome are detectable both maternal decidua placenta. However, activation placental with respect to mode delivery has not been profiled. Placental chorionic villus samples from women delivering at term via unassisted vaginal (UV) birth, labouring lower segment caesarean section (LLSCS, emergency section) prelabour (PLSCS, elective underwent high throughput RNA sequencing (NextSeq Illumina) bioinformatic analyses identify differentially expressed (DE) genes. DE genes (IL1RL1, STAT1, STAT2, IL2RB, IL17RE, IL18BP, TNFAIP2, TNFSF10 TNFRSF8), well common (IL1B, IL1R1, IL1R2, IL6, IL18, IL18R1, IL10, IL33), were targets for further qPCR Western blotting quantify protein expression. There was no specific sensor molecule-activated which dominated expression when stratified delivery, implying that multiple inflammasomes may function synergistically during parturition. Whilst placentae who had UV births overall pro-inflammatory mediators, LLSCS demonstrated much greater response, additional interplay pro- anti-inflammatory mediators. As expected, very low PLSCS births. Sex-specific differences also detected. Placentae male-bearing pregnancies displayed higher compared PLSCS, female-bearing UV. In conclusion, differs neonatal sex. Its assessment babies have exposed aberrant inflammation birth compromise their development long-term health wellbeing.