Uterine immune cells show aging signs in older pregnant women
An observational study found signs of cell aging in uterine immune cells from women aged 35 and older at 6–10 weeks of pregnancy.
Limit: Women with fetal or uterine abnormalities or underlying systemic disease were left out
Edited by Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
Women aged 20–29, 30–34 and 35 or older provided blood and uterine-lining samples at 6–10 weeks of pregnancy before elective terminations. Researchers used these samples in an observational comparison of macrophages, immune cells that engulf material. Compared with women aged 20–29, those aged 35 or older had uterine macrophages with stronger signs of senescence, a state in which cells stop dividing. Their macrophages were more often an inflammation-promoting type and had less ability to engulf material.
In separate animal experiments, researchers injected pregnant female mice aged 10–12 months with 2 million bone marrow-derived macrophages from young mice on each of pregnancy days 6.5 and 7.5. Compared with control injections, these injections reduced embryo resorption—the loss of developing embryos—and improved placental development at day 11.5.
Why it matters
Aging of uterine immune cells may offer a target for improving pregnancy outcomes at older maternal ages, the authors propose.
Caveats
The human comparison was observational and used samples from elective terminations, so it could not establish whether these cells caused later pregnancy complications. Participants had viable pregnancies without identified fetal abnormalities, uterine abnormalities or underlying systemic disease; the cell-transfer intervention was tested only in mice.
- Bone marrow-derived macrophages
- Advanced maternal age
- Inflammation
- Cellular senescence
- Embryo resorption
- Mice
The paper
Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Aging Cell, Jul 2026, Open access
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