Computational flow cytometry analysis reveals a unique immune signature of the human maternal-fetal interface.

PROBLEM: Decidual immune dysregulation is thought to underlie major pregnancy disorders; however, incomplete understanding of the decidual immune interface has hampered the mechanistic investigation.

METHOD OF STUDY: Human term decidua was collected, and single-cell phenotypic information was acquired by highly polychromatic flow cytometry. Cellular identity analysis was performed with t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding, DensVM clustering, and matched to CellOntology database.

RESULTS: Traditional analytical methods validated known cellular T and dendritic cell subsets in human term decidua. Computational analysis revealed a complex and tissue-specific decidual immune signature in both the innate and adaptive immune compartments.

CONCLUSION: Polychromatic flow cytometry with a streamlined computational analysis pipeline is a feasible approach to comprehensive immunome mapping of human term decidua. As an unbiased, standardized method of investigation, computational flow cytometry promises to unravel the immune pathology of pregnancy disorders.