Amsen, D.

Claas, F.H.J.

Lankester, A.C.

Lardy, N.M.

Mulder, A.

Opstelten, R.

Rood, J.J. van

Slot, M.C.

During pregnancy, maternal T cells can enter the foetus, leading to maternal-foetal chimerism. This phenomenon may affect how leukaemia patients respond to transplantation therapy using stem cells from cord blood (CB). It has been proposed that maternal T cells, primed to inherited paternal HLAs, are present in CB transplants and help to suppress leukaemic relapse. Several studies have reported evidence for the presence of maternal T cells in most CBs at sufficiently high numbers to lend credence to this idea. We here aimed to functionally characterise maternal T cells from CB. To our surprise, we could not isolate viable maternal cells from CB even after using state-of-the-art enrichment techniques that allow detection of viable cells in heterologous populations at frequencies that were several orders of magnitude lower than reported frequencies of maternal T cells in CB. In support of these results, we could only detect maternal DNA in a minority of samples and at insufficient amounts for reliable quantification through a sensitive PCR-based assay to measure In/Del polymorphisms. We conclude that maternal microchimerism is far less prominent than reported, at least in our cohort of CBs, and discuss possible explanations and implications

Opstelten, Rianne

Slot, Manon C.

Lardy, Neubury M.

Lankester, Arjan C.

Mulder, Arend

Claas, Frans H. J.

van Rood, Jon J.

Amsen, Derk

NARCIS 

Determining the extent of maternal-foetal chimerism in cord blood

Leiden University Scholary Publications

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1038/s41598-019-41733-w

Determining the extent of maternal-foetal chimerism in cord blood

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NARCIS

Leiden University Scholary Publications