Multi-omic Analysis of T-reg cells and their Role in Pregnancy

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  An integrated multi-omic analayis of T-Regulatory Cells and their role in maintaining a healthy pregnancy

• IRAS ID

  215226

• Contact name

  Sara Hillman

• Sponsor organisation

  University College London

• Duration of Study in the UK

  3 years, 11 months, 31 days

• Research summary

  Pre-eclampsia is a serious and potentially life-threatening condition that can affect both a mother and her unborn child. Currently, the reason why some women experience this problem in their pregnancy is unknown.\nA fetus is at least partly ‘foreign’ to the maternal womb due to inheritance of paternal genes. In the majority of pregnancies, the fetus is well tolerated by its maternal host and successful pregnancy and birth occurs. The mechanism by which this ‘tolerance’ works is not well established. However, one of the molecules emerging as an important candidate is the T-regulatory cell. These cells are a specific subset of our white blood cells, known to lessen the inflammatory response in organ transplant and autoimmune disease through the ability to adjust the immune response and promote generation of molecules that induce tolerance.\nWe hypothesise that dysfunction of T regulatory cells might have an important role to play in pre-eclampsia due to a dysfunctional maternal immune response to the fetus. We will study T regulatory cells of mothers who developed pre-eclampsia and those who did not. We will use novel techniques that have the capacity to investigate the entire genetic structure of a T regulatory cell and combine it with data about other features of the cell, referred to as the ‘omics’. We hope to uncover differences in the T regulatory cells of pre-eclamptic mothers that reveal functional pathways through which these differences arise. These pathways might act as targets for therapies that would correct the problem and prevent pre-eclampsia.

• REC name

  South Central - Oxford A Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  17/SC/0432

• Date of REC Opinion

  15 Sep 2017

• REC opinion

  Favourable Opinion