Mechanisms of Maternal Immune Tolerance During Pregnancy

Throughout their evolution, animals have developed mechanisms which protect them against parasites or infections by detecting and destroying foreign biological material within their own bodies. These mechanisms for excluding “non-self” biological materials whilst at the same time maintaining the integrity of the “self” have evolved for hundreds of millions of years into a highly complex body system, the immune system (Bainbridge, 2000). Any disbalance or alteration of the mechanisms maintaining the dynamic equilibrium between the “self” and “non-self” recognition could translate into a pathological state (or condition) like autoimmune disease at one end of the scale or immunodeficiency at the other.