Breastfeeding mothers can grant life-long immunity to offspring
The team investigated whether “maternal transfer of immunity by nursing permanently alters offspring immunity”. The team used mothers who had a preconception helminth infections and fostered offspring from uninfected mothers on them. It was previously thought that immunity is passed on via antibodies in breastmilk and that this protection ends when breastfeeding stops. However, in this study nursing pups acquired protective immunity from their mothers that was not dependent on a maternal antibody. Instead, the pups maternally acquired immunity was maintained into maturity and came from nursing mothers transferring TH2-competent CD4 T cells.
The data therefore shows that exposure to a globally prevalent source of infection before pregnancy provides nursing pups immune benefits mediated by maternally derived pathogen-experienced lymphocytes.
Lead and corresponding author Dr William Horsnell, who works in the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine (IDM) and the Division of Immunology, University of Cape Town (UCT) said: “Immune transfer from mother to infant via breastfeeding is a very important source of protection from early life infection.
“To the best of our knowledge this is the first demonstration that infection prior to pregnancy can transfer life-long cellular immunity to infants.
“The work shows that exposure to an infection before pregnancy can lead to a mother transferring long term immune benefits to her offspring. This is remarkable and adds a new dimension to our understanding of how a mother can influence our health.”
The research findings may open doors to designing new maternal immunization strategies which could assist longer term protection for children. Currently mothers are vaccinated to protect infants and boost new-borns immunity to infections, but this protection is thought to be transient. The research now shows that the effects can be permanent and new vaccines could be designed to take advantage of long-term protection.
The UCT team was comprised of Matthew Darby, Alisha Chetty, Dunja Mrjden, Katherine Smith, Donald Nyangahu, Heather Jaspan, Frank Brombacher and William Horsnell all of the IDM and Division of Immunology.
Read the paper - Preconception maternal helminth infection transfers via nursing long-lasting cellular immunity against helminths to offspring
Article by Bonamy Holtak