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Articles
Baby
comes
with brain repair kit for mum by Andy Coghlan
[8/19/05] NewScientist.com news service
Cells from babies help heal their mothers
[08 November 04]
"It has been known for about a decade that cells from a human
fetus can remain in its mother’s blood and bone marrow for many
years. But what do they do? Diana Bianchi at the Tufts-New
England Medical Center in Boston and her colleagues recently
showed that these fetal cells can transform themselves into
specialised cells in the thyroid, intestine, cervix and gall
bladder. Now her team has shown that, in mice at least, these
fetal cells also help heal skin wounds in the mother, both during
and after pregnancy."
Fetal
cells
in maternal tissue following pregnancy: what are the
consequences?
Johnson KL, Bianchi DW.
Hum Reprod Update. 2004 Nov-Dec;10(6):497-502. Epub 2004 Aug
19.
"The presence and persistence of fetal cells in murine maternal
tissue was first reported over 20 years ago, although it is only
more recently that the occurrence and potential consequences of
fetomaternal cell trafficking in humans have been fully
appreciated. Fetal cell microchimerism is a growing field of
investigation, although the data are contradictory relative to the
health consequences of persistent fetal cells in maternal tissues.
Understanding of the types of cells being transferred from fetus
to mother, the location of these fetal cells within the various
maternal tissue types, and the functionality of these cells may
ultimately lead to measures to minimize or eliminate the
deleterious effects of the cells, or to efforts to take advantage
of the presence of these cells for therapeutic purposes. This
review focuses on the origins of fetal cell microchimerism
research and the different hypotheses regarding the consequences
of persistent fetal cells in the mother, the various diseases that
have been evaluated with respect to fetomaternal cell trafficking,
the potential variables associated with the frequency, persistence
and tissue distribution of fetal cells in maternal tissue, and an
assessment of future direction in this innovative field of
inquiry."
Mothers
Harbor
Fetal Stem Cells: A Boost for Stem Cell Research
[7/6/04] "The important [finding] of this study is that
adult women may acquire and retain fetal stem cells naturally as a
result of pregnancy, and that these cells may have therapeutic
potential," said Dr. Diana W. Bianchi from Tufts.
Fetal cells left in mother may be multipotent - Researchers
detect expression of epithelial, leukocyte, and hepatocyte markers
on fetal microchimeric cells. [Journal of the American Medical
Association 2004; 292: 75-80]
Fetuses
give
mothers a gift of cells, study says - a less scientific
description
Pregnant Women "Inherit" Some
Characteristics of Their Children