WIKIMEDIA, WHATIGUANA
Pregnant mice expose their unborn pups to maternal gut microbes, which can affect the development of the innate immune system after birth, according to a study published today (March 17) in Science. The results challenge the notion that a pup’s own gut microbiome drives immune system development, suggesting that the molecular metabolites of the maternal microbiota are transferred to pups during gestation. This transfer of maternally derived microbial metabolites prepares the offspring’s immune system for exposure to the large variety of microbes that eventually populate the gut.
This mouse study is an “elegantly performed body of work that changes the paradigm that the main stimulus to postnatal immune development is microbial exposure at birth,” Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello, a microbiologist at New York University School of ...
