Vaccination and heterologous immunity: educating the immune system

Abstract

This review discusses three inter-related topics: (1) the immaturity of the neonatal and infant immune response; (2) heterologous immunity, where prior infection history with unrelated pathogens alters disease outcome resulting in either enhanced protective immunity or increased immunopathology to new infections, and (3) epidemiological human vaccine studies that demonstrate vaccines can have beneficial or detrimental effects on subsequent unrelated infections. The results from the epidemiological and heterologous immunity studies suggest that the immune system has tremendous plasticity and that each new infection or vaccine that an individual is exposed to during a lifetime will potentially alter the dynamics of their immune system. It also suggests that each new infection or vaccine that an infant receives is not only perturbing the immune system but is educating the immune system and laying down the foundation for all subsequent responses. This leads to the question, is there an optimum way to educate the immune system? Should this be taken into consideration in our vaccination protocols?

Virological and Immunological Outcomes of Coinfections

“…Similarly, the measles vaccine has an additional advantage; besides providing protection against measles, it could provide protective immunity against other, unrelated infections. Nevertheless, this wide-ranging beneficial effect could be abolished if the measles vaccine was followed by an inactivated diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis DTP vaccine (452).…”

Pre‐existing heterologous T‐cell immunity and neoantigen immunogenicity

“…This phenomenon is named heterologous immunity. Memory T cells play a critical role in long‐term heterologous immunity . Pre‐existing T‐cell memory enhances T‐cell responses to cross‐reactive epitopes, shaping the epitope dominance of secondary viral infections .…”

The Possible Collisions in Virus Infection Immunodiagnostics and Vaccination

“…В сыворот-ках ненарколептических субъектов, вакциниро-ванных Focetria, АТ к НП практически не выяв-лялись. Это дало основание сделать вывод, что связь нарколепсии с вакцинацией Pandemrix, вероятно, обусловлена высоким содержанием в вакцине НП и соответствующим иммунным ответом на него [3 ].…”

“…Сопоставление характеристик разных вакцин показало суще-ствование возможной связи возникновения нарколепсии с высоким содержанием в вакци-не Pandemrix (GlaxoSmithKline) нуклеопротеи-на (НП) вируса гриппа и образованием к нему АТ, перекрестно реагировавших с рецептором гипокретина (орексина) 2. Последний содержит в своей внеклеточной петле мотив, присутству-ющий и в составе НП [3].…”