IMMUNOLOGICAL PARAMETRS OF UMBILICAL CORD BLOOD FROM CHILDREN BORN TO WOMEN WITH UROGENITAL INFECTIONS

Significant incidence of chronic urogenital diseases, both of viral and bacterial origin in women of reproductive age leads to an increase in the frequency of intrauterine infections. These disorders lead to disturbances of postnatal adaptation of newborns and increased numbers of infectious complications. In order to assess the state of immune system, we examined forty-eight children born to women with urogenital infection, including twenty-nine infants with complicated course of early adaptation period (study group) and twenty children diagnosed as healthy upon discharge by the day 3 to 5 after birth (comparison group). By means of flow cytometry, the following subpopulations were assayed in cord blood: CD3+, CD3+CD4+, CD3+CD8+, CD19+, CD3CD16+CD56+ cells, expression levels of markers specific to activated monocytes CD14 (HLA-DR), and lymphocytes (CD25+, CD69+), like as markers of functionally mature cells (CD45R0, CD45RA), both in total lymphocyte pool and among T cell populations. Contents of IL-1β, TNFα, IFNγ, IL-4, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10 were assessed by ELISA technique. Our studies have shown that umbilical cord blood samples from the main group of newborns showed a statistically significant decrease in relative content of CD3+, CD4+, CD8+ and CD4+CD25+ cells, along with increase in the absolute numbers of leukocytes and lymphocytes, B-cells and NK cells, as well as expression of CD45RO+, CD45RA+ and CD3+CD45RO+ receptors, CD69+ and CD14+HLADR+ activation markers, accompanied by a significant increase of IL-8 production. Numerical determination of CD45RO+, CD3+CD45RO+, CD69+ and CD14+HLA-DR+ cells, and IL-8 contents in newborns, may serve as prognostic criteria for assignment of risk group for early adaptation disturbances and development of infectious diseases.