Can probiotics enhance vaccine-specific immunity in children and adults?

Abstract

The growing use of probiotics by the general public has heightened the interest in understanding the role of probiotics in promoting health and preventing disease. General practitioners and specialists often receive inquiries from their patients regarding probiotic products and their use to ward off systemic infection or intestinal maladies. Enhanced immune function is among the touted health benefits conferred by probiotics but has not yet been fully established. Results from recent clinical trials in adults suggest a potential role for probiotics in enhancing vaccine-specific immunity. Although almost all vaccinations are given during infancy and childhood, the numbers of and results from studies using probiotics in pediatric subjects are limited. This review evaluates recent clinical trials of probiotics used to enhance vaccine-specific immune responses in adults and infants. We highlight meaningful results and the implications of these findings for designing translational and clinical studies that will evaluate the potential clinical role for probiotics. We conclude that the touted health claims of probiotics for use in children to augment immunity warrant further investigation. In order to achieve this goal, a consensus should be reached on common study designs that apply similar treatment timelines, compare well-characterised probiotic strains and monitor effective responses against different classes of vaccines.

Allogenic Faecal Microbiota Transfer Induces Immune-Related Gene Sets in the Colon Mucosa of Patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome

“…Whether it is beneficial to achieve higher or lower expression of immune-related gene sets is difficult to answer. On the one hand, a strong pro-inflammatory response is generally considered as harmful; on the other hand, a stimulation of the immune response could also have beneficial effects on local and systemic immune regulation [33]. In our earlier report of the FMT trial [11], we described that symptom improvement was found in the allogenic FMT group compared to baseline, which was not the case in the autologous group.…”

A paediatric influenza update 100 years after the Skyros island Spanish flu outbreak

“…The use of adjuvant prebiotics/probiotics may offer an inexpensive intervention that may contribute to the prevention of influenza following influenza vaccination. However, a high heterogeneity of existing evidence was noted, while there are no reports to date that include children, at least to the best of our knowledge (90,91). Further studies are warranted, particularly in children, to elucidate the effectiveness of probiotics in the prevention of influenza and decide on the optimal strains, dose, and the timing and duration of supplementation, since there are many strains of probiotics with established immune modulatory effects yet to be tried.…”

Development of a technological platfom for creating innovative anti-tb drugs effective against multi-drug-resistant strains

“…Об иммуностимулирующей и иммуномодулирующей функции бактериальных адъювантов свидетельствует повышение титра антител, возрастание активности Тц-и/или Тх-клеток после их введения. Опубликован ряд работ, показывающих адъювантное действие пробиотических бактерий лактобацилл и бифидобактерий при противовирусной, а также противострептококковой вакцинации [27]. В последние годы идентифицированы бактериальные адъюванты на основе молочнокислых бактерий, компоненты бактериальной стенки, фибронектин, связывающий белок 1 Streptococcus pyogenes, поверхностные флагеллины, которые способны индуцировать антительные ответы.…”