Expression and analysis of endometrial TH1/TH2 cytokines throughout menstrual cycle and early pregnancy

    LU Caiª²Hong, TIAN Xiuª²Zhu, ZHOU Aiª²Lin

    1Department of Surgery, Bethune Military Medical College, Shijiazhuang 050041, China, 2Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, First Hospital, Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan 030001, China, 3Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 260 Hospital of Chinese PLA, Shijiazhuang 050041, China

    ¡¾Abstract¡¿ AIM: To investigate the roles and significance of endometrial TH1/TH2 cytokines in pregnancyª²immunity tolerance. METHODS: Fortyª²three cases of healthy women and forty cases of women with unexplained recurrent spontaneous abortion (URSA) were studied by immunohistochemical method using monoclonal antibody to ILª²2, ILª²6 and TNFª²¦Á, and in situ hybridization method using digoxinª²labeled probe of ILª²2 mRNA and ILª²10 mRNA. RESULTS: ¢Ù The increasing positive levels of endometrial epithelioglandular ILª²2, ILª²2 mRNA throughout proliferative, secretory and early pregnancy periods in URSA women were both significantly higher than those of healthy women (ILª²2£ºF=75.291, P<0.01£» ILª²2 mRNA£ºF=93.972, P<0.01). ¢Ú The increasing positive levels of endometrial TNFª²¦Á were seen throughout menstrual cycle and early pregnancy in both healthy and URSA women, but the level of TNFª²¦Á in the three periods were not all significantly statistical different between the healthy and URSA women (F=1.071, P>0.05). ¢Û In contrary to ILª²2 and ILª²2 mRNA, the increasing levels of endometrial epithelioglandular ILª²6 and ILª²10 mRNA throughout menstrual cycle and early pregnancy in healthy women were observed and were both significantly higher than those of URSA women (ILª²6£ºF=94.421, P<0.01£» ILª²10 mRNA£ºF=269.752, P<0.01). CONCLUSION: ILª²2 has an immune exclusive role in human pregnancy and is responsible for URSA. TNFª²¦Á may be good to the proliferation, growth and development of endometrium. ILª²6 and ILª²10 play positive and immune nutritious roles in normal pregnancy. The results provide the clue that the successful pregnancy is closely related to the balance of TH1/TH2 cytokines in maternalª²fetal tolerance. ......