A unique maternal and placental galectin signature upon SARS-CoV-2 infection suggests galectin-1 as a key alarmin at the maternal–fetal interface

Frontiers in Immunology

Immunology

Alice Lu-Culligan¹  Yiran Xie²  Yiru Wang²  Sandra M. Blois²  Christopher Urbschat²  Fangqi Zhao²  Enrico Kittmann²  Petra C. Arck²  Anke Diemert²  Mariana G. Garcia²  Ann-Christin Tallarek²  Pavithra Vijayakumar³  Gabriela S. Dveksler⁴  Juan Bayo⁵  Shelli F. Farhadian⁶ 

[1] Department of Immunobiology, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, United States;Department of Obstetrics and Fetal Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany;Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, United States;Department of Pathology, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD, United States;Gene Therapy Laboratory, Instituto de Investigaciones en Medicina Traslacional, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) - Universidad Austral, Buenos Aires, Argentina;Section of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States;

关键词: galectin-1;    galectin-3;    galectin-9;    galectin-7;    PSG1;    SARS-CoV-2;    COVID-19;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fimmu.2023.1196395

 received in 2023-03-29, accepted in 2023-06-06,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic imposed a risk of infection and disease in pregnant women and neonates. Successful pregnancy requires a fine-tuned regulation of the maternal immune system to accommodate the growing fetus and to protect the mother from infection. Galectins, a family of β-galactoside–binding proteins, modulate immune and inflammatory processes and have been recognized as critical factors in reproductive orchestration, including maternal immune adaptation in pregnancy. Pregnancy-specific glycoprotein 1 (PSG1) is a recently identified gal-1 ligand at the maternal–fetal interface, which may facilitate a successful pregnancy. Several studies suggest that galectins are involved in the immune response in SARS-CoV-2–infected patients. However, the galectins and PSG1 signature upon SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination during pregnancy remain unclear. In the present study, we examined the maternal circulating levels of galectins (gal-1, gal-3, gal-7, and gal-9) and PSG1 in pregnant women infected with SARS-CoV-2 before vaccination or uninfected women who were vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 and correlated their expression with different pregnancy parameters. SARS-CoV-2 infection or vaccination during pregnancy provoked an increase in maternal gal-1 circulating levels. On the other hand, levels of PSG1 were only augmented upon SARS-CoV-2 infection. A healthy pregnancy is associated with a positive correlation between gal-1 concentrations and gal-3 or gal-9; however, no correlation was observed between these lectins during SARS-CoV-2 infection. Transcriptome analysis of the placenta showed that gal-1, gal-3, and several PSG and glycoenzymes responsible for the synthesis of gal-1-binding glycotopes (such as linkage-specific N-acetyl-glucosaminyltransferases (MGATs)) are upregulated in pregnant women infected with SARS-CoV-2. Collectively, our findings identify a dynamically regulated “galectin-specific signature” that accompanies the SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination in pregnancy, and they highlight a potentially significant role for gal-1 as a key pregnancy protective alarmin during virus infection.

【 授权许可】

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Copyright © 2023 Zhao, Tallarek, Wang, Xie, Diemert, Lu-Culligan, Vijayakumar, Kittmann, Urbschat, Bayo, Arck, Farhadian, Dveksler, Garcia and Blois