Abstract

BACKGROUND: Placental malaria has been associated with increased cord blood maternal microchimerism (MMc), which in turn may affect susceptibility to malaria in the offspring. We sought to determine the impact of maternal peripheral Plasmodium falciparum parasitemia during pregnancy on MMc and to determine whether maternal cells expand during primary parasitemia in the offspring.METHODS: We conducted a nested cohort study of maternal-infant pairs from a prior pregnancy malaria chemoprevention study. MMc was measured by quantitative PCR targeting a maternal-specific marker in genomic DNA from cord blood, first P. falciparum parasitemia, and pre-parasitemia. Logistic and negative binomial regression were used to assess the impact of maternal peripheral parasitemia, symptomatic malaria, and placental malaria on cord blood MMc. Generalized estimating equations were used to assess predictors of MMc during infancy.RESULTS: Early maternal parasitemia was associated with increased detection of cord blood MMc (AOR=3.91, p=0.03), whereas late parasitemia, symptomatic malaria, and placental malaria were not. The first parasitemia episode in the infant was not associated with increased MMc relative to pre-parasitemia.CONCLUSIONS: Maternal parasitemia early in pregnancy may increase the amount of MMc acquired by the fetus. Future work should investigate the impact of this MMc on immune responses in the offspring.

View details for DOI 10.1093/infdis/jiab275

View details for PubMedID 34010401