Fetuses have their own immunity

摘要

Fetuses aren't as defenceless as they seem - they may be armed to fight off viruses long before birth.rnIt was thought that fetal immune cells were too immature to be useful and that fetuses and newborns relied on antibodies provided by their mothers. Now David Vermijlen at the Institute for Medical Immunology in Brussels, Belgium, and his colleagues have shown thatrnfetuses just 21 weeks old may berncapable of fending off infectionsrnusing their own immune cells.