Effects of sildenafil treatment on placental immune cell subsets in early-onset fetal growth restriction.

Introduction: Early onset fetal growth restriction is a common pregnancy complication with significant risk of perinatal mortality and morbidity. The most common etiology is placental insufficiency, reflected by several placental lesions that appear with fetal growth restriction. Placental immune cells are involved in almost all aspects of the development of the placenta and immune cell imbalances have been related to common pregnancy complications.

Placental histopathology in early-onset fetal growth restriction with use of sildenafil, a secondary analysis of the Dutch STRIDER study.

Objectives: Placental pathology lesions are common in early-onset fetal growth restriction (eoFGR). Therapeutic interventions to improve eoFGR outcomes are needed. In the international STRIDER trials (Sildenafil Therapy In Dismal prognosis Early-onset intrauterine growth Restriction) sildenafil didn't improve perinatal outcomes of eoFGR.

Decidual macrophages and Hofbauer cells in fetal growth restriction.

Placental macrophages, which include maternal decidual macrophages and fetal Hofbauer cells, display a high degree of phenotypical and functional plasticity. This provides these macrophages with a key role in immunologically driven events in pregnancy like host defense, establishing and maintaining maternal-fetal tolerance. Moreover, placental macrophages have an important role in placental development, including implantation of the conceptus and remodeling of the intrauterine vasculature.

Altered placental macrophage numbers and subsets in pregnancies complicated with intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (ICP) compared to healthy pregnancies.

Introduction: Intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (ICP) can result in adverse outcomes for both mother and fetus. Inflammatory (M1 subset) or anti-inflammatory (M2 subset) macrophage polarisation is associated with various complications of pregnancy. However, the influence of ICP on macrophage numbers and polarisation remains unknown.

Cold Mechanical Isolation of Placental Macrophages as a Method to Limit Procedure-Induced Activation of Macrophages.

Isolation of placental macrophages using enzymatic digestion at warm temperatures is widely used for in vitro studies. However, studies in brain and kidney tissue show that this method activates immune cells, immediate early genes, and heat shock proteins. Isolating placental macrophages while preserving their tissue-specific characteristics as much as possible is pivotal to reliably studying their functions.