Internal body clock timing in mothers’ affects offspring immunity and bacterial infection risk.
Findings from laboratory models show that a mother’s circadian rhythm, or internal body clock, plays a critical role in shaping the immune system state of her offspring. These immune signatures were found to be strong predictors of bacterial infection risk, highlighting how maternal biological timing can influence susceptibility to disease in the next generation.(1✔ ✔Trusted Source
Circadian-shaped immune variability predicts infection outcome
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People with disrupted circadian rhythms (like #nightshift workers) face a higher #infectionrisk due to mistimed immune defenses.
##circadianrhythm #immunehealth #bodyclock #infectionrisk #sleepscience #medindia
Circadian Timing as a Hidden Driver of Infection Risk
These findings offer novel insights into non-genetic factors shaping immune defenses and provide a framework to study circadian rhythms as a possible reason why some patients might be more vulnerable to getting infections during disease treatment.
The study, published in Science Advances, was led by Alejandro Aballay, Ph.D., professor of Genetics and dean of the UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.
“These findings reveal a circadian mechanism that can create significant differences in infection outcomes even when genetics and environment are similar,” Aballay said. “This circadian control may help explain why patients with comparable risk profiles often experience very different responses to infection.”
Why Similar Patients Respond Differently
Many patients respond differently to treatments, highlighting a need to understand factors that can affect the immune system and make individuals more susceptible to infections. Various factors, such as genetics, epigenetics and the environment, can affect individual risk and severity of infections.
Using Model Organisms to Track Immune States
The researchers used fluorescent reporters to study biomarkers in the immune system of the C. elegans model before and after bacterial infection.
Despite being almost genetically identical, these organisms can have very different immune responses – even in the same environment. This concept, called phenotypic heterogeneity, could help identify possible factors that can affect traits beyond genetics or environment.
The researchers found that some models with higher baseline expression of an inflammation biomarker were more susceptible to infection, and they identified key targets in the pathway that regulates that expression.
Maternal Body Clocks Shape Immune Variability
Interestingly, they noticed that maternal circadian rhythms were a factor that heavily influenced baseline expression levels of an inflammation biomarker.
Interfering with genes involved in this internal clock eliminated that influence, suggesting that this is a significant source of immune variability.
Implications for Personalized Medicine
These findings provide evidence that circadian rhythms can affect immune variability, suggesting that non-genetic factors can shape immune defenses. This raises questions about how internal clocks and other non-genetic factors can contribute to immune diversity in humans.
These findings suggest that this may be a reason why some patients react differently to treatments, even though they might be genetically similar.
While further research is needed, exploring the circadian regulation of the C. elegans
Reference:
- Circadian-shaped immune variability predicts infection outcome – (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx8112)
Source-University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center