The number of protective antibodies the body produces following immunization can vary due to differences in genetic makeup. Now, a genome-wide study done in thousands of children in the UK and Netherlands has revealed the nature of some of these genetic variants in response to three routine childhood vaccines. According to the authors, this is the first time a genome-wide approach has been applied to this issue, which could someday inform the development of new vaccines and lead to personalized vaccine schedules. The findings are published in Cell Reports.
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"Evoking robust and sustained vaccine-induced immunity from early life is a crucial component of global health initiatives to combat the burden of infectious disease," says Daniel O'Connor of the University of Oxford, who is co-first author on the paper along with Eileen Png of the Genome Institute of Singapore. "The mechanisms underlying the persistence of antibody is of major interest, since effectiveness and acceptability of vaccines would be improved if protection were sustained after infant immunization without the need for repeated boosting through childhood."
The current study collected genetic data from 3,602 children in the UK and Netherlands, focusing on response to three routine childhood vaccines: capsular group C meningococcal (MenC), Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), and tetanus toxoid (TT) vaccines. The researchers analyzed approximately 6.7 million genetic variants affecting single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with vaccine-induced antibody levels in the blood.
The authors note some shortcomings of the study. The variants described in the study likely only represent a small portion of the genetic determinants that influence immune response to vaccines and it is hard to know whether these apply to other ethnic populations besides that studied. Nevertheless, the researchers are hopeful that these findings could be incorporated to predict immune response, paving the way to personalized immune treatment.