Ca. Koelman et al., Correlation between oral sex and a low incidence of preeclampsia: a role for soluble HLA in seminal fluid?, J REPRO IMM, 46(2), 2000, pp. 155-166
The involvement of immune mechanisms in the aetiology of preeclampsia is of
ten suggested. Normal pregnancy is thought to be associated with a state of
tolerance to the foreign antigens of the fetus, whereas in preeclamptic wo
men this immunological tolerance might be hampered. The present study shows
that oral sex and swallowing sperm is correlated with a diminished occurre
nce of preeclampsia which fits in the existing idea that a paternal factor
is involved in the occurrence of preeclampsia. Because pregnancy has many s
imilarities with transplantation, we hypothesize that induction of allogene
ic tolerance to the paternal HLA molecules of the fetus may be crucial. Rec
ent data suggest that exposure, and especially oral exposure to soluble HLA
(sHLA) or HLA derived peptides can lead to transplantation tolerance. Simi
larly, sHLA antigens, that are present in the seminal plasma, might cause t
olerance in the mother to paternal antigens. In order to test whether this
indeed may be the case, we investigated whether sHLA antigens are present i
n seminal plasma. Using a specific ELISA we detected sHLA class I molecules
in seminal plasma. The level varied between individuals and was related to
the level in plasma. Further studies showed that these sHLA class I molecu
les included classical HLA class I alleles. such as sHLA-A2. -B7. -B51. -B3
5 and sHLA-A9. Preliminary data show lower levels of sHLA in seminal plasma
in the preeclampsia group, although not significantly different from the c
ontrol group. An extension of the present study is necessary to verify this
hypothesis. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.