Periodontal disease is a chronic, polymicrobial oral infection that affects up to 50% of pregnant women. This oral infection has recently been associated with adverse pregnancy outcome. Pregnant women with active chronicoral infection have a three to five-fold increased risk for spontaneous miscarriage, preeclampsia, and small-for-gestational age infants. The mechanisms by which chronic maternal oral infection disrupts normal pregnancy is unknown, although there are animal and human data to demonstrate systemic dissemination of oral pathogens to the maternal and fetal circulation, and to the placenta. Maintenance of normal pregnancy is predicated by normal placentation and placental development. This application seeks to study the mechanisms that chronic maternal oral infection could affect pregnancy outcome. The purpose of this investigation is to develop a rabbit model to study the effects of chronic maternal infection with oral pathogens on fetal growth and placental development. The hypothesis of this application is that chronic maternal infection with oral pathogens results in translocation of these pathogens to the utero-placental unit, altering maternal-placental interaction at the time of implantation, thus impairing fetal growth. Redundancy exists at the maternal-fetal interface that protects against maternal complement activation and inflammation, which allows normal embryo attachment and placental invasion. Chronic maternal infection with oral pathogens may alter the balance necessary to allow normal placental development to occur.
In Specific Aim 1, a model of chronic maternal infection with oral pathogens, distant from the uterus, will be developed in the rabbit and used to measure the effect on fetal growth.
In Specific Aim 2, maternal and fetal protective factors that allow normal implantation will be characterized in the rabbit, and placental inflammation and maternal immune tolerance will be compared between rabbits chronically infected with oral pathogens and those uninfected. The presence or absence of biomarkers of inflammation and immune tolerance within the placenta will be correlated with recovery or oral pathogens from the placenta and newborn weight. Understanding of these mechanisms may assist in the development of interventions to protect the fetus and placenta from damage as a result of chronic maternal infection with oral pathogens.
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