Human Reproduction, Vol 13, 455-459, Copyright © 1998 by Oxford University Press
B Rinkevich
Pregnancies in outbred mammals may be regarded as successfully developed
homografts. One of the hypotheses that attempts to answer the enigma of why
the fetus is not rejected (fetal-maternal relationships are based on
reciprocal expressions of foreign transplantation antigens) claims for the
existence of possible evolutionary links between invertebrate
allorecognition and mammalian implantation, based on some cellular
similarities. This essay further discusses the possible evolutionary
perspectives between vertebrates and invertebrates alloimmunities from a
different viewpoint. We discuss similarities between natural
transplantation in colonial marine invertebrates, which are followed by
chimerism and a state of tolerance, and two natural transplantation events
in the mammalian systems which both have records for prolonged chimerism
and tolerance: the phenomenon of dizygotic twin fusions and the situation
of fetal cells implantation. Earlier comparative evolutionary perspectives
are revisited.
REVIEWS
Immunology of human implantation: from the invertebrates' point of view
National Institute of Oceanography, Tel-Shikmona, Haifa, Israel.
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