Impact of pregnancy status on the transcriptome of peripheral white blood cells

Pregnancy poses an immunological challenge because the fetus must be supported within the pregnant female during the entire gestational period. Indeed, the mechanisms behind the maternal immune respond to pregnancy are not fully understand yet. As such, the goal of this study was to compare the gene expression profiles of peripheral blood leukocytes between pregnant and non-pregnant dairy cows 21 after embryo transfer. Nulliparous Holstein heifers were subjected to embryo transfer using fresh IVF embryos. Pregnancy diagnosis was performed on day 21 after embryo transfer. A total of 10 heifers, 5 pregnant and 5 non-pregnant, were used in this study.