CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Pregnancy challenges immune cells and immunomodulatory circuits of the mother and the developing fetus to dynamically adapt to each other in an homeostatic and tolerant environment for fetal growth. This entails the coordination of multiple cellular processes all devoted to accommodate and nourish the fetus while protecting the mother from endogenous and exogenous threatens. From the earliest stages of pregnancy several strategies to efficiently communicate immune and trophoblast cells within the interface or at a distance were identified and chemokines might act at on different targets through direct or indirect mechanisms. Here we briefly review some mechanisms of immune cell selective recruitment to the early maternal-placental interfaces to accomplish immunotolerance and homeostatic control and we discuss evidence on two locally released polypeptides, RANTES and VIP, as novel contributors to the multiplicity of immune tolerant responses and uterine quiescence requirements.