127 research outputs found
Exploiting Human Memory B Cell Heterogeneity for Improved Vaccine Efficacy
The major goal in vaccination is establishment of long-term, prophylactic humoral memory to a pathogen. Two major components to long-lived humoral memory are plasma cells for the production of specific immunoglobulin and memory B cells that survey for their specific antigen in the periphery for later affinity maturation, proliferation, and differentiation. The study of human B cell memory has been aided by the discovery of a general marker for B cell memory, expression of CD27; however, new data suggests the existence of CD27− memory B cells as well. These recently described non-canonical memory populations have increasingly pointed to the heterogeneity of the memory compartment. The novel B memory subsets in humans appear to have unique origins, localization, and functions compared to what was considered to be a “classical” memory B cell. In this article, we review the known B cell memory subsets, the establishment of B cell memory in vaccination and infection, and how understanding these newly described subsets can inform vaccine design and disease treatment
Human antibodies targeting Zika virus NS1 provide protection against disease in a mouse model.
Zika virus is a mosquito-borne flavivirus closely related to dengue virus that can cause severe disease in humans, including microcephaly in newborns and Guillain-Barré syndrome in adults. Specific treatments and vaccines for Zika virus are not currently available. Here, we isolate and characterize four monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) from an infected patient that target the non-structural protein NS1. We show that while these antibodies are non-neutralizing, NS1-specific mAbs can engage FcγR without inducing antibody dependent enhancement (ADE) of infection in vitro. Moreover, we demonstrate that mAb AA12 has protective efficacy against lethal challenges of African and Asian lineage strains of Zika virus in Stat2-/- mice. Protection is Fc-dependent, as a mutated antibody unable to activate known Fc effector functions or complement is not protective in vivo. This study highlights the importance of the ZIKV NS1 protein as a potential vaccine antigen
Recommended from our members
Minimally Mutated HIV-1 Broadly Neutralizing Antibodies to Guide Reductionist Vaccine Design
An optimal HIV vaccine should induce broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) that neutralize diverse viral strains and subtypes. However, potent bnAbs develop in only a small fraction of HIV-infected individuals, all contain rare features such as extensive mutation, insertions, deletions, and/or long complementarity-determining regions, and some are polyreactive, casting doubt on whether bnAbs to HIV can be reliably induced by vaccination. We engineered two potent VRC01-class bnAbs that minimized rare features. According to a quantitative features frequency analysis, the set of features for one of these minimally mutated bnAbs compared favorably with all 68 HIV bnAbs analyzed and was similar to antibodies elicited by common vaccines. This same minimally mutated bnAb lacked polyreactivity in four different assays. We then divided the minimal mutations into spatial clusters and dissected the epitope components interacting with those clusters, by mutational and crystallographic analyses coupled with neutralization assays. Finally, by synthesizing available data, we developed a working-concept boosting strategy to select the mutation clusters in a logical order following a germline-targeting prime. We have thus developed potent HIV bnAbs that may be more tractable vaccine goals compared to existing bnAbs, and we have proposed a strategy to elicit them. This reductionist approach to vaccine design, guided by antibody and antigen structure, could be applied to design candidate vaccines for other HIV bnAbs or protective Abs against other pathogens
High Affinity Antibodies against Influenza Characterize the Plasmablast Response in SLE Patients After Vaccination
We thank Elena Solomaha for advice on SPR experiments, Angela Hayes for clerical support, Christina Helms and Lori Garman for technical assistance, Gillian M. Air for providing influenza viruses; Linda F. Thompson for early involvement in the study and Meghan Sullivan, Irvin Ho and Sarah F. Andrews for helpful comments on the manuscript.Breakdown of B cell tolerance is a cardinal feature of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Increased numbers of autoreactive mature naïve B cells have been described in SLE patients and autoantibodies have been shown to arise from autoreactive and non-autoreactive precursors. How these defects, in the regulation of B cell tolerance and selection, influence germinal center (GC) reactions that are directed towards foreign antigens has yet to be investigated. Here, we examined the characteristics of post-GC foreign antigen-specific B cells from SLE patients and healthy controls by analyzing monoclonal antibodies generated from plasmablasts induced specifically by influenza vaccination. We report that many of the SLE patients had anti-influenza antibodies with higher binding affinity and neutralization capacity than those from controls. Although overall frequencies of autoreactivity in the influenza-specific plasmablasts were similar for SLE patients and controls, the variable gene repertoire of influenza-specific plasmablasts from SLE patients was altered, with increased usage of JH6 and long heavy chain CDR3 segments. We found that high affinity anti-influenza antibodies generally characterize the plasmablast responses of SLE patients with low levels of autoreactivity; however, certain exceptions were noted. The high-avidity antibody responses in SLE patients may also be correlated with cytokines that are abnormally expressed in lupus. These findings provide insights into the effects of dysregulated immunity on the quality of antibody responses following influenza vaccination and further our understanding of the underlying abnormalities of lupus.Yeshttp://www.plosone.org/static/editorial#pee
Exploring Play and Playfulness in the Everyday Lives of Older Women
There is an emerging body of literature about older women and play, often focused on social groupings (e.g., Red Hats Society, Raging Grannies). This study aimed to contribute to this body of literature by exploring the meaning, experience, and place of play and playfulness in the day-to-day lives of older women. Interpreting older women’s play as a phenomenologist informed by the feminist gerontology literature, I explored, described, and interpreted play using the voices, words, lived experiences, and artful reflections of four focus groups comprised of nineteen women between the ages of 63 to 95 years. Play emerged to be a wonderful, complex, and paradoxical phenomenon for older women that interconnected in three ways: as a doing, a feeling, and a being. Within and across the women, play was characterized by these paradoxes: time flies by and time slows down, productive and unproductive, social and solitary, and serious and silly. Play was infused into the everyday lives of these older women. Arts-based methods served to invigorate and engage the women and me, and transformed the research environment into a comfortable, open space to play and be playful, and to share, gather, and build knowledge. Thus this research contributes to the growing body of literature about the lives and experiences of older women, from their perspective, adds insight into older women’s play, and grows our knowledge about collecting data through arts-based methods with older women
ISARIC-COVID-19 dataset: A Prospective, Standardized, Global Dataset of Patients Hospitalized with COVID-19
publishedVersio
Neurological manifestations of COVID-19 in adults and children
Different neurological manifestations of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in adults and children and their impact have not been well characterized. We aimed to determine the prevalence of neurological manifestations and in-hospital complications among hospitalized COVID-19 patients and ascertain differences between adults and children. We conducted a prospective multicentre observational study using the International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC) cohort across 1507 sites worldwide from 30 January 2020 to 25 May 2021. Analyses of neurological manifestations and neurological complications considered unadjusted prevalence estimates for predefined patient subgroups, and adjusted estimates as a function of patient age and time of hospitalization using generalized linear models.
Overall, 161 239 patients (158 267 adults; 2972 children) hospitalized with COVID-19 and assessed for neurological manifestations and complications were included. In adults and children, the most frequent neurological manifestations at admission were fatigue (adults: 37.4%; children: 20.4%), altered consciousness (20.9%; 6.8%), myalgia (16.9%; 7.6%), dysgeusia (7.4%; 1.9%), anosmia (6.0%; 2.2%) and seizure (1.1%; 5.2%). In adults, the most frequent in-hospital neurological complications were stroke (1.5%), seizure (1%) and CNS infection (0.2%). Each occurred more frequently in intensive care unit (ICU) than in non-ICU patients. In children, seizure was the only neurological complication to occur more frequently in ICU versus non-ICU (7.1% versus 2.3%, P < 0.001).
Stroke prevalence increased with increasing age, while CNS infection and seizure steadily decreased with age. There was a dramatic decrease in stroke over time during the pandemic. Hypertension, chronic neurological disease and the use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation were associated with increased risk of stroke. Altered consciousness was associated with CNS infection, seizure and stroke. All in-hospital neurological complications were associated with increased odds of death. The likelihood of death rose with increasing age, especially after 25 years of age.
In conclusion, adults and children have different neurological manifestations and in-hospital complications associated with COVID-19. Stroke risk increased with increasing age, while CNS infection and seizure risk decreased with age
Restricted VH/VL usage and limited mutations in gluten-specific IgA of coeliac disease lesion plasma cells
Coeliac disease (CD), an enteropathy caused by cereal gluten ingestion, is characterized by CD4+ T cells recognizing deamidated gluten and by antibodies reactive to gluten or the self-antigen transglutaminase 2 (TG2). TG2-specific immunoglobulin A (IgA) of plasma cells (PCs) from CD lesions have limited somatic hypermutation (SHM). Here we report that gluten-specific IgA of lesion-resident PCs share this feature. Monoclonal antibodies were expression cloned from single PCs of patients either isolated from cultures with reactivity to complex deamidated gluten antigen or by sorting with gluten peptide tetramers. Typically, the antibodies bind gluten peptides related to T-cell epitopes and many have higher reactivity to deamidated peptides. There is restricted VH and VL combination and usage among the antibodies. Limited SHM suggests that a common factor governs the mutation level in PCs producing TG2- and gluten-specific IgA. The antibodies have potential use for diagnosis of CD and for detection of gluten
Les doctrines et la politique economiques du comte de Cavour.
Paris. Th. Dr. 1902-1903.OPLADEN-RUG0
Identification d'un transcrit alternatif du gène CD20 dans les hémopathies B, codant pour une nouvelle protéine et impliqué dans les résistances au Rituximab (cible potentielle en immunothérapie anti-tumorale)
BESANCON-BU Médecine pharmacie (250562102) / SudocSudocFranceF
- …
