Potential for early-life immune insult including developmental immunotoxicity

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J Toxicol Environ Health B Crit Rev. 2008 Oct;11(8):660-80.

Potential for early-life immune insult including developmental

immunotoxicity in autism and autism spectrum disorders: focus on

critical windows of immune vulnerability.Dietert RR, Dietert JM.

Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Cornell University,

Ithaca, NY14852, USA. rrd1@...

Early-life immune insults (ELII) including xenobiotic-induced

developmental immunotoxicity (DIT) are important factors in childhood

and adult chronic diseases. However, prenatal and perinatal

environmentally induced immune alterations have yet to be considered

in depth in the context of autism and autism spectrum disorders

(ASDs). Numerous factors produce early-life-induced immune

dysfunction in offspring, including exposure to xenobiotics, maternal

infections, and other prenatal-neonatal stressors. Early life

sensitivity to ELII, including DIT, results from the heightened

vulnerability of the developing immune system to disruption and the

serious nature of the adverse outcomes arising after disruption of

one-time immune maturational events. The resulting health risks

extend beyond infectious diseases, cancer, allergy, and autoimmunity

to include pathologies of the neurological, reproductive, and

endocrine systems. Because these changes may include misregulation of

resident inflammatory myelomonocytic cells in tissues such as the

brain, they are a potential concern in cases of prenatal-neonatal

brain pathologies and neurobehavioral deficits. Autism and ASDs are

chronic developmental neurobehavioral disorders that are on the rise

in the United States with prenatal and perinatal environmental

factors suspected as contributors to this increase. Evidence for an

association between environmentally associated childhood immune

dysfunction and ASDs suggests that ELII and DIT may contribute to

these conditions. However, it is not known if this linkage is

directly associated with the brain pathologies or represents a

separate (or secondary) outcome. This review considers the known

features of ELII and DIT and how they may provide important clues to

prenatal brain inflammation and the risk of autism and ASDs.

PMID: 18821424 [PubMed - in process]