Scientists discovered years ago that newborn infants depend upon immune components transferred from their mothers to survive the onslaught of pathogens that begin invading their bodies as soon as they are born. Eventually, children develop their own immune systems, built through surviving natural exposures to viruses and bacteria, and augmented by a phalanx of well-established childhood vaccines. But in the meantime, it’s one of a mother’s most important gifts that keeps their babies safe: antibodies.

Now, a far-reaching study published June 8, 2022, in Nature, provides a surprising explanation of how those early days of mother-provided immunity actually work-and what that information could mean for preventing death and disability from a wide range of infectious diseases. The findings suggest that researchers may be able to mimic the amped-up antibodies that expecting mothers produce to create new drugs to treat diseases as well as improved vaccines to prevent them.

“For many years, scientists believed that antibodies cannot get inside cells. They don’t have the necessary machinery. And so, infections caused by pathogens that live exclusively inside cells were thought to be invisible to antibody-based therapies,” says Sing Sing Way, MD, PhD, Division of Infectious Diseases at Cincinnati Children’s. “Our findings show that pregnancy changes the structure of certain sugars attached to the antibodies, which allows them to protect babies from infection by a much wider range of pathogens.”

“The maternal-infant dyad is so special. It’s the intimate connection between a mother and her baby,” says John Erickson, MD, PhD, Division of Neonatology, and first-author of the study.

Both Way and Erickson are part of Cincinnati Children’s Center for Inflammation and Tolerance and the Perinatal Institute, which strives to improve outcomes for all pregnant women and their newborns.

Erickson continues, “This special connection starts when babies are in the womb and continues after birth. I love seeing the closeness between mothers and their babies in our newborn care units. This discovery paves the way for pioneering new therapies that can specifically target infections in pregnant mothers and newborns babies. I believe these findings also will have far-reaching implications for antibody-based therapies in other fields.”

How mothers make super antibodies

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