Uterine immunovascular adaptations in early pregnancy

Abstract

The overall purpose of the projects described in this thesis was to study the regulation of uterine changes that are essential for the developmental processes of placentation. We explored the role of relaxin along with its receptor RXFP1 in the maternal adaptation to pregnancy. Moreover, we identified a novel type I interferon pathway that regulates the uterine NK (uNK) cell transcriptome and function in human pregnancy. Finally, we characterized the progressive transcriptional changes of the endometrium over the secretory phase of the menstrual cycle and first weeks of pregnancy. To this end, we defined which genes are involved in endometrial maturation and determined, whether the transcriptional regulation of these decidualization-associated genes is disturbed early in pregnancies later on complicated by preeclampsia.