Decidualized human decidual stromal cells inhibit chemotaxis of activated T cells: a potential mechanism of maternal-fetal immune tolerance Llorca, Tatiana Ruiz Magaña, María José Aguilar Martínez, José Luis García Valdeavero, Olga Marı´a Rodríguez Doña, Lucia Abadía Molina, Ana Clara Ruiz Ruiz, María Carmen García Olivares, Enrique Fernando Chemotaxis Decidual stromal cells Decidualization Th1 cells Tc cells Numerous lines of evidence confirm that decidual stromal cells (DSCs) play a key role in maternal–fetal immune tolerance. Under the influence of progesterone and other hormones, the DSCs go through a process of differentiation (decidualization) during normal pregnancy. In mice, DSCs inhibit the expression of chemokines that attract abortigenic Th1 and Tc cells to the decidua. We have studied this phenomenon in humans. Methods: We established human DSC lines and decidualized these cells in vitro with progesterone and cAMP. We determined the expression of the chemokines CXCL9, CXCL10 and CXCL11, whose receptor CXCR3 is expressed by Th1 and Tc cells, in undifferentiated DSCs and decidualized DSCs by qRT-PCR. Activated CD3+CXCR3+ cells, including CD4+ Th1 cells and CD8+ Tc cells, were induced in vitro. The migration capacity of these activated lymphocytes was investigated in Transwell chambers with conditioned media from undifferentiated and decidualized DSCs. Results: We demonstrated that CXCL9 was not expressed by DSCs, whereas the expression of CXCL10 and CXCL11 was inhibited in decidualized cells. Conditioned media from decidualized cells significantly inhibited the migration of Th1 and Tc cells.Wefound that decidualized cells secrete factors ofMWless than 6000–8000 Da, which actively inhibit the chemotaxis of these lymphocytes. Discussion: These results confirm in humans that decidualization of DSCs inhibits the expression by these cells of chemokines that attract Th1 and Tc cells and induces the secretion by DSCs of factors that inhibit the chemotaxis of these lymphocytes, thus preventing the arrival of abortigenic T cells in the decidua. 2023-10-16T09:22:48Z 2023-10-16T09:22:48Z 2023-08-23 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Llorca T, Ruiz-Magaña MJ, Martinez-Aguilar R, Garcia-Valdeavero OM, Rodriguez-Doña L, Abadia-Molina AC, Ruiz-Ruiz C and Olivares EG (2023) Decidualized human decidual stromal cells inhibit chemotaxis of activated T cells: a potential mechanism of maternal-fetal immune tolerance. Front. Immunol. 14:1223539. [doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1223539] https://hdl.handle.net/10481/85014 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1223539 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución 4.0 Internacional Frontiers