Parents go to great lengths to ensure the health and well-being of their developing offspring. The favor, however, may not always be returned.An illustration shows that fetal cells may have an influence on a mother’s body.
Dramatic research has shown that during pregnancy, cells of the fetus often migrate through the placenta, taking up residence in many areas of the mother’s body, where their influence may benefit or undermine maternal health.
The presence of fetal cells in maternal tissue is known as fetal microchimerism. The term alludes to the chimeras of ancient Greek myth — composite creatures built from different animal parts, like the goat-lion-serpent depicted in an Etruscan bronze sculpture.
According to Amy Boddy, a researcher at Arizona State University’s Department of Psychology and lead author of a new study, chimeras exist. Indeed, many humans bear chimerical traits in the form of foreign cells from parents, siblings or offspring, acquired during pregnancy.
“Fetal cells can act as stem cells and develop into epithelial cells, specialized heart cells, liver cells and so forth. This shows that they are very dynamic and play a huge role in the maternal body. They can even migrate to the brain and differentiate into neurons,” Boddy said. “We are all chimeras.”
Fellow ASU researchers Angelo Fortunato, Melissa Wilson Sayres and Athena Aktipis joined Boddy for the new study. Fortunato is with the Biodesign Institute’s Human and Comparative Genomics Lab. Wilson Sayres and Aktipis — both with Biodesign’s Center for Evolution and Medicine — are also researchers with ASU’s School of Life Sciences and Department of Psychology, respectively.
Mother’s little helpers?
Although fetal microchimerism is a common occurrence across placental mammals (including humans), the effects of such cells on maternal health remain a topic of fierce debate in the biological community.
In research appearing in the advanced online edition of the journal Bioessays, Boddy and her colleagues review the available literature on fetal microchimerism and human health, applying an evolutionary framework to predict when fetal cells are inclined to act cooperatively to enhance maternal health and when their behavior is likely to be competitive, occasionally leading to adverse effects on the mother.
Fetal cells may do more than simply migrate to maternal tissues.
The authors suggest they can act as a sort of placenta outside the womb, redirecting essential assets from the maternal body to the developing fetus. Cells derived from the fetus — which can persist in maternal tissues for decades after a child is born — have been associated with both protection and increased susceptibility to a range of afflictions, including cancer and autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis.
But, as co-author Wilson Sayres, cautions, “it’s not only a tug of war between maternal and fetal interests. There is also a mutual desire for the maternal system to survive and provide nutrients and for the fetal system to survive and pass on DNA.”
Thank you, Grampa Dave.