Human decidual lymphocytes and the immunobiology of pregnancy.

of Paper Presented by Invitation at the 4th Congress of the European Society for Reproductive & Development Innvrology, Rhodes, Greece, June 2003 ∗ Tel.: +1-617-495-2733; fax: +1-617-496-8351. E-mail address: [email protected] (J.L. Strominger). 0165-0378/$ – see front matter © 2004 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jri.2003.08.002 18 J.L. Strominger / Journal of Reproductive Immunology 62 (2004) 17–18 polarized toward GM-CSF production compared to their CD4+ peripheral blood counterparts. Moreover, in contrast to their peripheral blood counterparts that secrete more of the Th-2 cytokine IL-4 than IFN, decidual CD4+ iNKT cells exhibited a striking Th1-like bias, secreting more IFNthan IL-4. The expression of CD1d on trophoblasts and the polarization of cytokine expression by decidual iNKT cells suggests that maternal iNKT cell interactions with CD1d expressed on invading fetal cells may play an immunoregulatory and/or developmental role at the maternal–fetal interface. Thus, at least these two subsets of decidual lymphocytes may have an important role in maternal fetal interactions.