Immunomolecular Mechanisms in Mammalian Implantation

Abstract

We identified the TTK-1 cell line to be a human large granular lymphocyte (LGL)/natural killer (NK) cell line from bone marrow or lymphoid tissue. This cell line expressed laminin on the cell surface and secreted interleukin-3 (IL-3) into culture supernatant in addition to immunosuppressive factors. We also revealed that cytokines of the colony stimulating factor (CSF) family essential for the proliferation and differentiation of trophoblast cells were generated in the mixed lymphocyte reaction (MLR) and the trophoblast cell line could be established by adding the products of MLR to the culture. Furthermore, the therapeutic effects of cytokines of the recombinant human (rh) CSF family including IL-3, granulocyte-macrophage-CSF (GM-CSF), macrophage-CSF (M-CSF) and granulocyte-CSF (G-CSF) on the spontaneous abortion prone mice were examined. The results demonstrated that each cytokine definitely responded to the increase in placental and fetal weight and the incidence of fetal resorption in various ways.