ScienceDaily (May 5, 2008) — Cutting the umbilical cord doesn’t necessarily sever the physical link between mother and child. Many cells pass back and forth between the mother and fetus during pregnancy and can be detected in the tissues and organs of both even decades later. This mixing of cells from two genetically distinct individuals is called microchimerism...
...In January, Nelson reported the first discovery that cells passed from mother to child during pregnancy can
differentiate into functioning islet beta cells that produce insulin in the child. The same study also found maternal DNA in greater amounts in the blood of children and young adults with Type 1 diabetes than their healthy siblings and a control group, implying that the cells may be attempting to repair damaged tissue. There was no evidence that the mother’s cells were attacking the child’s insulin cells and no evidence that the maternal cells were targets of an immune response from the child’s immune system.
The findings could lead to new approaches to treating Type 1 diabetes. For example, if maternal microchimerism results in cells that make insulin, a mother’s stem cells might be harvested and used to treat her diabetic child. Such cells would have a genetic edge over donated islet cells from a cadaver that are usually completely genetically mismatched...
...The discovery that a mother’s cells can turn up in her adult progeny and that fetal cells can occur in women who were once pregnant heralds the emergence of microchimerism as an important new theme in biology. (
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