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Biology and pathology of the uterine microenvironment and its natural killer cells

Tissues are the new frontier of discoveries in immunology. Cells of the immune system are an integral part of tissue physiology and immunity. Determining how immune cells inhabit, housekeep, and defend gut, lung, brain, liver, uterus, and other organs helps revealing the intimate details of tissue p...

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Autores principales: Wang, Fuyan, Qualls, Anita Ellen, Marques-Fernandez, Laia, Colucci, Francesco
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8429689/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34426671
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41423-021-00739-z
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author Wang, Fuyan
Qualls, Anita Ellen
Marques-Fernandez, Laia
Colucci, Francesco
author_facet Wang, Fuyan
Qualls, Anita Ellen
Marques-Fernandez, Laia
Colucci, Francesco
author_sort Wang, Fuyan
collection PubMed
description Tissues are the new frontier of discoveries in immunology. Cells of the immune system are an integral part of tissue physiology and immunity. Determining how immune cells inhabit, housekeep, and defend gut, lung, brain, liver, uterus, and other organs helps revealing the intimate details of tissue physiology and may offer new therapeutic targets to treat pathologies. The uterine microenvironment modulates the development and function of innate lymphoid cells [ILC, largely represented by natural killer (NK) cells], macrophages, T cells, and dendritic cells. These immune cells, in turn, contribute to tissue homeostasis. Regulated by ovarian hormones, the human uterine mucosa (endometrium) undergoes ~400 monthly cycles of breakdown and regeneration from menarche to menopause, with its fibroblasts, glands, blood vessels, and immune cells remodeling the tissue into the transient decidua. Even more transformative changes occur upon blastocyst implantation. Before the placenta is formed, the endometrial glands feed the embryo by histiotrophic nutrition while the uterine spiral arteries are stripped of their endothelial layer and smooth muscle actin. This arterial remodeling is carried out by invading fetal trophoblast and maternal immune cells, chiefly uterine NK (uNK) cells, which also assist fetal growth. The transformed arteries no longer respond to maternal stimuli and meet the increasing demands of the growing fetus. This review focuses on how the everchanging uterine microenvironment affects uNK cells and how uNK cells regulate homeostasis of the decidua, placenta development, and fetal growth. Determining these pathways will help understand the causes of major pregnancy complications.
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spelling pubmed-84296892021-09-24 Biology and pathology of the uterine microenvironment and its natural killer cells Wang, Fuyan Qualls, Anita Ellen Marques-Fernandez, Laia Colucci, Francesco Cell Mol Immunol Review Article Tissues are the new frontier of discoveries in immunology. Cells of the immune system are an integral part of tissue physiology and immunity. Determining how immune cells inhabit, housekeep, and defend gut, lung, brain, liver, uterus, and other organs helps revealing the intimate details of tissue physiology and may offer new therapeutic targets to treat pathologies. The uterine microenvironment modulates the development and function of innate lymphoid cells [ILC, largely represented by natural killer (NK) cells], macrophages, T cells, and dendritic cells. These immune cells, in turn, contribute to tissue homeostasis. Regulated by ovarian hormones, the human uterine mucosa (endometrium) undergoes ~400 monthly cycles of breakdown and regeneration from menarche to menopause, with its fibroblasts, glands, blood vessels, and immune cells remodeling the tissue into the transient decidua. Even more transformative changes occur upon blastocyst implantation. Before the placenta is formed, the endometrial glands feed the embryo by histiotrophic nutrition while the uterine spiral arteries are stripped of their endothelial layer and smooth muscle actin. This arterial remodeling is carried out by invading fetal trophoblast and maternal immune cells, chiefly uterine NK (uNK) cells, which also assist fetal growth. The transformed arteries no longer respond to maternal stimuli and meet the increasing demands of the growing fetus. This review focuses on how the everchanging uterine microenvironment affects uNK cells and how uNK cells regulate homeostasis of the decidua, placenta development, and fetal growth. Determining these pathways will help understand the causes of major pregnancy complications. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-08-23 2021-09 /pmc/articles/PMC8429689/ /pubmed/34426671 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41423-021-00739-z Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
spellingShingle Review Article
Wang, Fuyan
Qualls, Anita Ellen
Marques-Fernandez, Laia
Colucci, Francesco
Biology and pathology of the uterine microenvironment and its natural killer cells
title Biology and pathology of the uterine microenvironment and its natural killer cells
title_full Biology and pathology of the uterine microenvironment and its natural killer cells
title_fullStr Biology and pathology of the uterine microenvironment and its natural killer cells
title_full_unstemmed Biology and pathology of the uterine microenvironment and its natural killer cells
title_short Biology and pathology of the uterine microenvironment and its natural killer cells
title_sort biology and pathology of the uterine microenvironment and its natural killer cells
topic Review Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8429689/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34426671
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41423-021-00739-z
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