Here, we have used primary vaccination of healthy donors with attenuated live yellow fever virus 17D (YFV-17D) as a model to study the generation of protective immunity. In short intervals after vaccination, we analyzed the induction of YFV-17D specific T-and B-cell immunity, bystander activation, dendritic cell subsets, changes in serum cytokine levels, and YFV-17D-specific antibodies. We show activation of innate immunity and a concomitant decline of numbers of peripheral blood T and B cells. An early peak of antigen-specific T cells at day 2, followed by mobilization of innate immune cells, preceded the development of maximal adaptive immunity against YFV-17D at day 14 after vaccination. Interestingly, potent adaptive immunity as measured by high titers of neutralizing YFV-17D-specific antibodies, correlated with early activation and recruitment of YFV-17D-specific CD4 + T cells and higher levels of sIL-6R. Thus our data might provide new insights into the interplay of innate and adaptive immunity for the induction of protective immunity.
Keywords: Immune responses r Protective immunity r T cells r Vaccination r Yellow fever virus Supporting Information available online
IntroductionVaccines were introduced into modern medicine about 300 years ago and are now administered to millions of people every year, conferring efficient protection against a variety of toxins as well as bacterial and viral diseases. However, the complex interplay of innate and adaptive immune cells, particularly in the first few Correspondence: Dr. Siegfried Kohler e-mail: siegfried.kohler@charite.de days after vaccination, leading to protective immunity after challenge with an innocuous agent is still incompletely understood. Yet this information might be crucial to developing new vaccines or improving current vaccinations with respect to efficiency, especially in risk groups and prevention of side effects.In order to assess early events in the course of a defined protective immune response, we studied vaccination of healthy * These authors contributed equally to this work. Eur. J. Immunol. 2012. 42: 2363-2373 humans with the 17D yellow fever virus vaccine (YFV-17D 5] and efficiently induce DC maturation, characterized by upregulation of CD86, CD80, MHC class II, and CD40. Barba-Spaeth et al. detected YFV-17D-dependent infection of human DCs irrespective of their maturation state but no infection of monocytes [6]. In vivo, the activation of B-and T cells has been shown to occur between day 4 and day 15 in YFV-17D vaccinated subjects, characterized by the expression of phenotypic markers such as CD69 or IL-10-R on CD8 + T and B cells and HLA-DR on CD4 + T cells [7]. A persistent, broadly reactive CD4 + T-cell response with a mixed TH1/TH2 phenotype was observed [8]. The maximal expansion of CD8 + T cells was detectable at day 30 with 0.5 to 17% of CD8 + T cells recognized by tetramers, yet activation determined by expression of HLA-DR + , CD38 + , KI-67 high , and BCL-2 low , among YFV-17D-specific CD8 + T cells was already detected at ...