Figure 1. Pregnancy does not alter the proportions of effector, naïve, or memory T cells in the peripheral blood.

Fresh peripheral blood from 9 healthy 3^rd trimester pregnant women and 9 healthy non-pregnant women was processed and analyzed as described in materials and methods. (A) Gating strategy for the identification of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in maternal peripheral blood is depicted in respective dot blots. Positive populations of CCR7 are determined with the help of isotype staining (full grey histogram) or antibody staining (black line) on total CD4 or CD8 populations. (B) Dot blot depiction of CD45RA and RO in the four sub-populations identified in the two histograms in A. (C–E) Gating strategy for the identification of three T cell sub-populations with distinct history. (C) CD45RA expression defining CD45RA+ cells (gate set based on isotype control staining). (D) CD45RO expression is depicted in these CD45RA+ cells and the CD45RO− cells are identified (CD45RA+, CD45RO−) as the CD45RA+ population. The CD45RO+ cells of that same histogram are identified as CD45RA+/RO+. (E) CD45RO+ cells are defined as CD45RO+ in a histogram (left, gate set based on isotype control staining) and the cells expressing CD45RO are gated for the absence of CD45RA in another histogram gating (right). Statistical analysis was done using a non-paired two-tailed Student’s T test.