Maternal Helminth Infections

Authors: Kathrin Straubinger Clarissa Prazeres da Costa

Publish Date: 2014

Volume: , Issue: , Pages: 27-48

PDF Link

Abstract

Chronic helminth infections are highly prevalent in many parts of the world and a considerable infection rate during pregnancy has been reported It is becoming clear that the development of the fetal immune system and the immune responses to homologous and possibly even heterologous antigens later in life is already determined in utero The contributing factors and mechanisms are still under investigation However studies have demonstrated that maternal helminth infection can influence susceptibility to a homologous infection during childhood without previous fetomaternal transmission of the infectious agent itself during pregnancy Whether this is caused eg by chronic maternal immune responses cells or cytokines such as immuneregulation or transmission of helminth derived antigen/proteins and furthermore which developmental stage of the offspring’s immune system is affected by such factors eg in an epigenetic manner and finally what clinical implications these results have regarding vaccination strategies needs to be investigated in the future

Keywords: