Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2010 Jun 15.
Published in final edited form as: N Engl J Med. 2009 Mar 26;360(13):1355–1357. doi: 10.1056/NEJMcibr0810752

Figure 1. Immunity and the Maternal–Fetal Axis.

Figure 1

Mold and colleagues1 recently described a mechanism through which fetal tolerance of maternal antigens is initiated. Noninherited HLA antigens (orange) and inherited maternal HLA antigens (blue) are shown. Noninherited maternal HLA antigens include intact HLA recognized by fetal effector T cells and maternal peptides recognized by the FOXP3-positive regulatory T cells. The different results of effector T cells versus regulatory T-cell pathways with respect to the persistence of mature maternal cells (microchimerism) are indicated.