First Evidence of Foetal DNA Persisting in Female Human Brain Tissue

Long-lasting foetal microchimerism in maternal brain is common, affects many brain regions

Thursday, 27 September 2012

Small portions of male DNA, most likely left over in a mother's body by a male foetus can be detected in the maternal brain relatively frequently, according to a report published Sep. 26 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by William Chan of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and his colleagues.

This shows a male cell in female human brain.

Credit: Citation: Chan WFN, Gurnot C, 

Montine TJ, Sonnen JA, Guthrie KA, et al. 

(2012) Male Microchimerism in the Human 

Female Brain. PLoS ONE 7(9): e45592, 

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0045592.

The process, called foetal 'microchimerism (Mc)’, is common in other tissues such as blood, but this is the first evidence of male Mc in the human female brain. Microchimerism can be both beneficial and harmful to maternal health, since it is associated with processes such as tissue repair, as well as to autoimmune diseases.

Testing for the presence of a particular region of the Y-chromosome in autopsied brain tissues, the research team discovered that 63% of their samples showed potentially long-lasting Mc in multiple brain regions. They also found that women with Alzheimer's disease (AD) had less Mc than women without the disease.

According to the authors, this result warrants further investigation because previous reports have suggested that AD may be more prevalent in women with a higher number of pregnancies compared to childless women. The researchers commented that changes to the blood-brain barrier that occur during pregnancy could facilitate the process by which Mc is acquired into the human brain.

"This is the first evidence that microchimerism can cross the blood-brain barrier to establish male foetal tissue in the human female brain" says Chan.

Source: Public Library of Science 

Contact: Jyoti Madhusoodanan

Reference:

Male Microchimerism in the Human Female Brain 

Chan WFN, Gurnot C, Montine TJ, Sonnen JA, Guthrie KA, Nelson JL

PLoS ONE 7(9): e45592 (2012), doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0045592

.........

ZenMaster

---

For more on stem cells and cloning, go to CellNEWS at

http://cellnews-blog.blogspot.com/

---