WIKIMEDIA, NEVITAnalyzing blood samples from healthy human fetuses from all three trimester of gestation, researchers have comprehensively mapped the progression of the developing adaptive immune system. The results are published today (February 25) in Science Translational Medicine.
The work expands upon prior studies that surveyed the spectrum of the adaptive immune system in mice and human fetal liver and spleen samples using PCR and sequencing. Two pediatric immunologists, Luigi Notarangelo of Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School and Raz Somech of the Sheba Medical Center and Tel Aviv University in Israel, along with their colleagues applied these standard approaches as well as next-generation sequencing to track T- and B-cell development using four different fetal samples taken at 12, 13, 22, and 26 weeks of gestation, as well as samples from healthy, full-term infants. The study is the first to analyze both B and T cell diversity throughout gestation within the same fetal sample, said Notarangelo.
“This is a very important study ...
