Immune dysfunction in pregnancy and after birth plays a role in development of Autism

[natasa778]

Immune dysfunction during pregnancy and after birth may play a role in the development of autism spectrum disorder

Using the Danish Historic Birth Cohort of more than 100,000 pregnant women who underwent screening or diagnostic amniocentesis and/or phlebotomy, group of researchers from Germany uncovered differences in levels of certain immune/inflammatory mediators between pregnancies of children who later developed autism and those of healthy controls.

On the basis of the pattern of cytokines and chemokines that he observed, Dr. Abdallah concluded that his findings suggest a proinflammatory intrauterine state during pregnancy in children diagnosed later in life with ASD, compensated for by an anti-inflammatory response. The lower level of neonatal cytokines may indicate postnatal hypoactivity of immune cells, associated with ASD.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/760389?src=stfb

Using the Danish Historic Birth Cohort of more than 100,000 pregnant women who underwent screening or diagnostic amniocentesis and/or phlebotomy, he compared cytokine and chemokine levels in amniotic fluid and neonatal blood using neonatal dried blood spot samples from the same individuals to investigate the possible contributory role of immune dysfunction during pregnancy and after birth in the development of ASD.

Concatenating these various databases allowed the researchers to address the questions of interest. On the basis of availability of all required information and biological samples, among singleton births the researchers identified 414 ASD patients and 820 control participants who were matched by year of birth and sex for the birth years 1982 to 2000. Cytokines were measured in amniotic fluid and neonatal blood for each individual.

...
The investigators performed a primary analysis comparing ASD patients to non-ASD control participants and a supplementary analysis of typical autism patients vs control participants with no psychiatric comorbidities.
...
Variations in several cytokines and chemokines in amniotic fluid and neonatal blood were observed between the ASD children and their control counterparts. Dr. Abdallah noted that some markers that were elevated in amniotic fluid of ASD participants (eg, interleukin-4 and interleukin-10) were present in lower levels in neonatal blood compared with normal control participants.

"Different studies have shown similar patterns to the ones that we have in amniotic fluid, for example...but [in] the neonatal samples, we haven't seen it before," he said. "And maybe that's because most of the studies that were performed up to date are mainly on children later in life [and] older than the population we have here."

Table. Cytokine/chemokine Levels: Children Later Diagnosed With ASD Compared With Control Levels


Increased Levels

Amniotic fluid: IL-4, IL-10, MCP-1, TNF

Neonatal blood IL-8, sIL-6r?


Decreased Levels

Amniotic fluid: --

Neonatal blood: IL-1?, IL-2, IL-4, IL-5, IL-6, IL-10, IL-12, IFN-?, GM-CSF, RANTES

 

[natasa778]

Also many of those cytokines above that were decreased in neonatal blood here have shown to be elevated pretty consistently in (older) children with Autism, so what could be happening is that there is a temporary 'dip' in cytokine levels right after birth


Btw isn't high Il-8 in some way linked to (human?) retroviral infections - I remember vaguely HTLV link there, anyone?

 

[aquariusgirl]

My IL8 was massively elevated. My ID doc said that was common in ppl testing pos+ for XMRV.