The biological mechanisms underlying why some people’s immune systems react to vaccinations differently have recently been examined, and new findings from a meta-analysis have been published in Nature Immunology. These findings may have broad ramifications for the creation and administration of vaccines.
Researchers from Emory University examined the molecular characteristics of 820 healthy young adults who received 13 different vaccinations as part of a series of studies for The Human Immunology Project Consortium (HIPC), a network of national research institutions investigating the range of reactions to various infections and vaccinations. The goal of the studies was to identify specific biomarkers that cause an antibody response to vaccinations.
Based on their level of inflammatory response prior to vaccination, the participants were divided into three endotypes, or groups with a common gene expression: a high inflammatory group, a low inflammatory group, and a mid-inflammatory group. Researchers discovered that the group with the highest levels of inflammation prior to vaccination had the strongest antibody response after examining the immunological alterations that took place in participants after vaccination.
We were taken aback because inflammation is typically portrayed negatively, says Slim Fourati, PhD, a bioinformatics research associate at Emory University and the paper’s first author. These findings suggest that some types of inflammation may actually enhance the effectiveness of a vaccine.
In order to predict how well an individual will respond to a vaccine, Fourati, Dr. Rafick-Pierre Sekaly, professor and senior author of the paper, and the HIPC team identified particular biomarkers among this group and cellular characteristics that characterized the pre-vaccination inflammatory signature.
“Vaccines may be customized to generate this reaction and enhance their effectiveness,” adds Fourati, “with the knowledge we now have about what aspects of the immune system enable a more robust reaction But there are still more questions that need to be resolved.
To ascertain the reason for this inflammation in otherwise healthy persons, more investigation is required. Future research, says Fourati, should examine how these biomarkers help people with weaker immune systems and older age groups benefit from vaccine protection.
These results, which were published concurrently with three other HIPC trials by scientists from Yale School of Medicine, Stanford University, University of Cincinnati, Harvard Medical School, and Columbia University Medical Center, can help all people respond better to vaccination. It becomes possible to change pre-vaccine immunological states in more susceptible people by having a better grasp of how different immune states affect antibody responses. For instance, researchers may provide an adjuvant with the vaccination to individuals predicted to have a weakened immune response in order to activate inflammatory genes linked to enhanced protection.
Researchers from Emory University examined the molecular characteristics of 820 healthy young adults who received 13 different vaccinations as part of a series of studies for The Human Immunology Project Consortium (HIPC), a network of national research institutions investigating the range of reactions to various infections and vaccinations. The goal of the studies was to identify specific biomarkers that cause an antibody response to vaccinations.
Why do individual vaccination reactions differ? According to study
