In conventional pregnancies, 50% of developing embryo’s DNA does not come from the mother. However, the mother’s immune system does not consider the embryo to be dangerous. Surrogate mothers have even less DNA in common with the developing embryo, yet surrogate mothers can still successfully bear children who are not their own.
Based on my interest in how developing embryos are not negatively affected by the mother’s immune system, I created a draft research question:
Are there genes that are expressed by the developing embryo that induce tolerance against the mother’s immune system?
However, I consider this question to be quite broad. Therefore, I will work towards narrowing it down to ask about a specific gene. In past immunology courses, I have learned that T regulatory cells in the immune system secrete inhibitory cytokines such as IL-10 and TGF-β that suppress immune cells in order to promote immune tolerance. For the final version of my research question, I will consider discussing whether IL-10 expression by the developing embryo is necessary for immune tolerance by the mother.
I am concerned that my question may have already been answered by other researchers, so an important challenge that I will have to overcome is to create a novel question that no one has answered yet.