Shaping neonatal immunity by maternal administration of probiotics

The neonatal period is considered as a window of opportunity to shape innate and adaptive immunity that will influence life-long immunity. Gut microbiota and related probiotics have an important impact on immune cell development and function. They are involved in the setting of the threshold for immune responses that maintains the balance between tolerance and development of pathologies such as allergic asthma or pulmonary infections.
For this project, researchers hypothesize that maternal administration of probiotics and the metabolites they produce regulate, in the offspring, the function of innate immune cells, such as conventional dendritic cells and gamma-delta T cells.

Spokesperson

Véronique Flamand
Institute for Medical Immunology (IMI)
Faculty of Medicine

Partner

David Vermijlen
Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics Department
Faculty of Pharmacy

Dates
Created on September 5, 2018