Circulating Immune Complexes in Pregnancy Complicated by Chronic Cytomegalovirus Infection

• Main Authors: Irina A. Andrievskaya, Michael T. Lucenko
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: International Medical Research and Development Corporation 2013-09-01
• Series: International Journal of Biomedicine
• Subjects: chronic cytomegalovirus infection; pregnancy; lysosomes; syncytiotrophoblast; circulating immune complexes.
• Online Access: http://ijbm.org/articles/Article3_3_CR4.pdf

Chronic cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection in pregnant women is accompanied by the accumulation of large amounts of the circulating immune complexes (CIC) in the peripheral blood. On reaching the placental villous syncytiotrophoblast, the CIC induce a concentration of lysosomes of the syncytiotrophoblast cytosol on the outer membrane of the fetoplacental barrier. Contact between the circulating CIC and the lysosomes on the outer syncytiotrophoblast membrane triggers the release and expression, on its surface, of acidic phosphomonoesterase, which leads to lipid peroxidation and damage to the outer syncytiotrophoblast membrane itself.