Maternal Cells Live in Human Brains for Life — SkimNews
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- Sami Kanaan at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center analyzed brain tissue from 37 epilepsy surgery patients ranging from newborns to teenagers, finding maternal cells in 26 of them at roughly 2.2 maternal cells per 100,000 brain cells.
- The team used single-nucleus RNA sequencing combined with a custom computational tool called Cellector to flag foreign maternal cells that are typically too rare — 1 in 100,000 — for standard methods to easily spot.
- Maternal microchimeric cells were found actively working across five brain cell types — neurons, microglia, astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, and endothelial cells that line blood vessels.
- Analysis of three previously published datasets showed these foreign cells persist from a 22-week-old fetus through people in their 80s, though their numbers decline with age, possibly due to apoptosis (programmed cell death).
- Hina Chaudhry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who wasn't involved in the study, called the work "very exciting," saying the sophisticated methods finally answer whether microchimerism in the brain is real.
Why it matters: The study confirms that nearly every human brain is likely a genetic mosaic carrying maternal cells that function across neurons, immune cells, and support structures from fetal life through old age. Finding that these cells persist for decades and decline with age gives researchers a concrete biological target for studying tissue repair and autoimmune conditions in the brain.
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