Leucocytes immunization of women with habitual abortions, clearly reversed the embryotoxic effect of the sera. It is clear that the mouse blastocysts culture model is more specific for the effect of habitual aborters' sera then sera from women with other infertility problems and may be a good indicator for a change in toxicity after immunization. A clinical trial is currently under way to clarify the correlation between the results obtained in this model and the clinical outcome of pregnancy. Representative Publications Zigril, M., Fein, A., Carp, H., and Toder, V. Immunopotentiation reverses the embryotoxic effect of serum from women with pregnancy loss. The association between a high glucose level in early pregnancy and inborn anomalies has been repeatedly reported in diabetic women and in animal models.
Ionizing radiation is a well known human and animals teratogen.
The radiation embryologic syndromes include growth retardation, embryonic or fetal death and congenital malformations. The embryotoxic effect of radiation is attributed to its genotoxic effect on actively proliferating embryonic cells. Apoptosis is one of the important physiological determinants of embryonic development controlled at the molecular level. Therefore, the present project is designed to clarify to what extent apoptosis, induced by irradiation of embryonic cells, correlates with the final manifestation of abnormal embryogenesis. Another topic under current investigation is the effect of MHC-nonrelated immunization on embryonic resistance to irradiation.