The Placental Transmission of Antibodies in the Skin Sensitive Type of Human Allergy

Abstract

It has been suggested that the transmission of skin-sensitizing antibodies from the maternal to the fetal circulation may be a factor in the development of allergic diseases. Certain other antibodies such as diphtheria antitoxin, typhoid agglutinin, tetanus antitoxin, hemolysins, and bacteriolysins, have been shown to pass through the human placenta from mother to fetus. Excellent reviews of this subject have been published by Ratner, Jackson, and Gruehl (1), Bell and Erickkson (2), Lippard and Wheeler (3), and Wiener and Silverman (4) and others. Placental transmission of antibodies responsible for anaphylactic shock has been demonstrated in the lower animals by Rosenau and Anderson (5), Otto (6), Wells (7), Schenck (8), Lewis (9), Ratner and his coworkers (10), and Cohen and Woodruff (11). Cohen, Cohen, and Hawver (12) reported the presence of skin-sensitlzing antibodies in the blood of a newborn rhesus monkey after injection of a sensitive human serum into the mother within 7 days prior to delivery.Placental transmission of skin-sensitizing antibodies in the human being has not been shown. Bell and Erickkson (2) were unable to demonstrate in the cord sera of 10 allergic mothers the skin-sensitizing antibodies that were shown to be present in the maternal sera in various dilutions. Caulfeild (13) also reported inability to demonstrate skin-sensitizing antibodies in the cord sera of 2 allergic mothers. Walzer (14) in a discussion of Bell's paper supported Bell's findings. Zohn (15) was unable to show such antibodies in the cord blood of 11 women actively sensitized and skin-reactive to Ascaris lumbricoides, although the maternal blood of 9 of the women was positive by passive transfer tests.Wiener and Silverman (4), on the basis of titratiorr of the hemagglutinin content of maternal and cord blood, reported that "the index of permeability of the human placenta to antibodies or the coefficient of distribution of antibodies between maternal and cord blood" falls between 8 and 16. They suggested that the failure to detect placental transmission of skin-sensitizing antibody was due to the small amounts present in the maternal blood and lack of quantitative studies thereof.Although all the direct evidence has shown there is no transmission of skin-sensitizing antibodies through the human placenta, the apparently contradictory evidence of transmission of other human antibodies and of certain anaphylactic antibodies in experimental animals has caused many to doubt that the point was completely proved. Therefore, it seems worth 611

The Immunological System of the Child: Part I: Development of Immunity in the Child

“…Sherman, Hampton, and Cooke (1940) found that the blood of one infant born to a highly allergic mother, whose serum not only contained atopic reagins but also blocking antibodies as a result of hypersensitization treatment, contained the blocking antibodies but not the atopic reagins. More recent work has demonstrated that, while the yG-globulins of the mother are readily transferred to the foetus, YA-and YMglobulins are not.…”

Elements of the history of our present concepts of anaphylaxis, hay fever and asthma

“…They then compared the serum of patients before and after injection treatment and found that mixtures of ragweed extract and post-treatment serum did not give an immediate reaction when injected into the skin of normal recipients, whereas, pretreatment serum, containing as much or even less skin-sensitizing activity, did. At about the same time, Sherman, Hampton and Cooke reported that blocking antibody readily passed the placenta [106], further differentiating blocking antibody from reagin. They interpreted these findings as '.…”

Prausnitz and Küstner phenomenon: The P-K reaction

“…14 Although P-K tests were most feasibly accomplished by means of a passive transfer of reagincontaining sera, the presence of reagins in other body fluids allowed for an alternative source for study, such as in nasal secretions 15 and in colostra of allergic mothers. 16 To the opposite effect, the inability of reagins to pass membranes of the placenta 17 and the choroid plexus 18 negated comparable use of cord blood and cerebrospinal fluid, respectively.…”