 Eutherian fetoembryonic defense system (eu-FEDS) hypothesis

The Eutherian Fetoembryonic Defense System (eu-FEDS) is a hypothetical model describing a method by which immune systems are capable of recognizing additional states of relatedness like "own species" such as is observed in maternal immune tolerance in pregnancy.The model includes descriptions of the proposed signaling mechanism and several proposed examples of exploitation of this signaling in disease states.