Cellular and humoral immune responses to measles in immune adults re‐immunized with measles vaccine

Abstract

The objective of this study was to characterize the kinetics of the cellular and humoral immune responses elicited by measles vaccine given to previously immune adults. The cellular and humoral immune responses to measles were measured in seven healthy adults, before vaccination and at 1, 2, 3, and 4 weeks and 3 months after vaccination, using measles-specific T-cell proliferation and plaque reduction neutralization assays. All study subjects had detectable measles antibodies, but only six (85%) showed protective titers, defined as >1:120, before immunization. However measles-specific T-cell proliferation was not detectable before vaccination in any of the subjects. The six subjects with protective titers showed a positive stimulation index (SI) of >3.0 within the first 4 weeks after vaccination, an SI of 5 at the 4th week, and an SI of 3 at 3 months after vaccination. The subject with a low antibody titer (1:99) before vaccination developed a high SI at 3 months after vaccination. This subject was the only participant whose neutralizing antibody titers increased more than 4-fold by 3 months after vaccination. No significant increases in geometric mean titers were detected in the other six subjects during the follow-up period. These data suggest that high measles antibody titers interfere with the humoral response in subjects who receive a booster immunization, whereas the cellular response is boosted at least transiently, after revaccination.

Neutralizing antibody response to booster vaccination with the 17d yellow fever vaccine

“…The proposed explanation is that pre-formed antibodies facilitate the clearance of the attenuated yellow fever virus before a more robust immune response can be activated. A similar effect has been observed after booster vaccination with the live, attenuated measles vaccine [6,14,20]. It is also possible that cell-mediated immunity quickly disposes of the viral infection before any antibody response can occur.…”

“…These studies were performed on limited numbers of patients, without a significant range of pre-booster serologies. A similar phenomena has been described after measles vaccination and booster [6,14]. Generally, a strong amnestic response would be expected after booster vaccination if enough viral replication or antigen is present [12], and this response would be specific to yellow fever.…”

Immune response to measles vaccine after mass vaccination in Urmia, Islamic Republic of Iran

“…This finding is in agreement with other studies showing that high measles antibody titres interfere with the mean antibody response, and the greatest increase occurred in those with the lowest pre-immunization titres [25,[32][33][34][35]. Therefore antibody response titres were significantly inversely correlated with antibody status before mass vaccination, i.e.…”

Neonatal Immunization with a Sindbis Virus-DNA Measles Vaccine Induces Adult-Like Neutralizing Antibodies and Cell-Mediated Immunity in the Presence of Maternal Antibodies

“…Although vaccine-induced PRN Abs are deemed essential to block virus entrance to the host cell, T cell responses can control viral replication and confer protection, as demonstrated in vaccinated monkeys upon MV challenge (12,15,59,60). The contribution of CMI to preventing measles infection in humans in the light of "failed" seroconversion has been increasingly recognized (31,32,55,61,62). Experiments to investigate the protective efficacy of our MV DNA vaccines in very young infant rhesus macaques are underway.…”

“…Results are expressed as stimulation index, calculated as counts per minute in cells incubated with Ag per counts per minute of cells incubated with medium alone Ϯ SEM of replicate cultures. A stimulation index Ն3 was considered a significant response according to the measles literature (31,32).…”