Prospects of vaccination against pneumococcal infection based on the asthma phenotype

Abstract

According to recent studies, bronchial asthma is characterized by a wide variability of the mechanisms of occurrence and progression. This heterogeneity is caused by patterns of predominant cells and inflammatory mediators, which determine differences in immunological parameters observed in patients with certain endotypes depending on the dominant type of mediators (high and low T2 inflammation). In long-term observations, a substantial research base has been accumulated justifying the effectiveness of vaccination against pneumococcal infection in patients with asthma. The vaccination decreases the frequency of exacerbations of the disease and hospitalizations in the short and medium term. However, these studies evaluated the asthma patients as a wholesome population, and it remains unexplored whether the effect of pneumococcal vaccines on asthma differs depending on the endotype of the disease and what are the mechanisms of such a differentiated effect.The aim of this work is to present the results of recent quality studies on changes in the profile of inflammatory asthma mediators under the action of immunobiological substances based on Streptococcus pneumoniae antigens, primarily from the vaccines.Conclusion. The asthma heterogeneity can lead to different clinical outcomes in pneumococcal infection and, respectively, the clinical effects of immunization in patients differentiate according to the nature of inflammation. In other words, the uniformity of the clinical effect of vaccination against pneumococcal infection in all patients in ongoing studies may represent the combined effect of molecular mechanisms regulating the specific activity of Th1-, Th2-, Th17-, NKT-, and Treg-cells. The results of studies proving the ability of pneumococcal vaccines to modulate the Th1-, Th2-, Th17-, Treg immune response in patients with asthma contributed to increased interest in developing new immunoregulatory therapeutic agents based on S. pneumoniae antigens.