Decrease of the lymphoproliferative response to varicella-zoster virus antigen in the aged

Abstract

Humoral antibodies and specific cellular immune reactions (proliferative immune response in the lymphocyte transformation test) to varicella-zoster virus antigen were measured in children, young adults, and elderly people. In children and young adults, the humoral varicella-zoster-specific antibodies and the virusspecific cellular immune response generally coincided. In the over-60 age group, however, a discrepancy was often observed between these parameters. Ninety percent of the elderly subjects showed humoral antibodies, but only 64% still had a measurable varicella-zoster-specific immune response. There was no correlation between the magnitude of the virus antigen-specific immune response and the mitogen-induced lymphoproliferative response (phytohemagglutinin stimulation). One in three elderly people, therefore, showed no cellular immune response to the varicella-zoster virus antigen, and this person could probably be regarded as a potential herpes zoster patient. out essentially by the method of Pellegrino et al. (13). Briefly, heparinized whole blood was diluted 1:20 with RPMI 1640 culture medium containing glutamine and supplemented with 10% fetal calf serum, penicillin (100 U/ml), and streptomycin (100 yg/ml). Ten 0.1-ml sam-24

Human Herpes Viruses Latent Infection in the Nervous System

“…Moreover, VZV reactivation involves spread of virus throughout the tissue and can be altered by cellular as well as humoral immune responses. This could explain why the incidence of zoster increases with age, since it has been shown that VZV-specific T-cell responses diminish with advancing age (Miller 1980, Berger et al 1981, and why zoster is so prevalent in immune-compromised individuals. This also explains the meningeal reaction with cerebrospinal fluid pleocytosis due to the active infectious process.…”

Ability of yeast Ty-VLPs (virus-like particles) containing varicella-zoster virus (VZV)gE and assembly protein fragments to induce in vitro proliferation of human lymphocytes from VZV immune patients

“…responses in these varicella patients were the mean patient age was 34 years [Bovill and Bannister, 1998]. The low responses obtained with zoster patients may again be a reflection of age and waning immunocompetence [Berger et al, 1981].…”

Low antibody avidity in elderly chickenpox patients

“…The pathogenesis of reactivation of VZV following primary chickenpox has not as yet been established. Antibodies levels (including VZV-specific IgA) are maintained at normal or sometimes even raised levels in elderly and immunocompromised individuals [Miller, 1980;Gershon and Steinberg, 1981;Burke et al, 1982;Berger et al, 1981;Levy et al, 19831. However, diminished cellular immune function manifesting as reduced in-vivo skin test and in-vitro lymphoproliferative responses to VZV antigen have been demonstrated in the aged and are presumed to be related to increased incidence of zoster in elderly and immunocompromised individuals [Miller, 1980;Gershon and Steinberg, 1981;Burke et al, 1982;Berger et al, 1981 I.…”