| Autor: |
Iwajomo OH, Finn A, Moons P, Nkhata R, Sepako E, Ogunniyi AD, Williams NA, Heyderman RS |
| Zdroj: |
Journal of Infectious Diseases; 8/15/2011, Vol. 204 Issue 4, p534-543, 10p |
| Abstrakt: |
Invasive pneumococcal disease is a leading cause of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-associated mortality in sub-Saharan African children. Defective T-cell-mediated immunity partially explains this high disease burden, but there is an increased risk of invasive pneumococcal disease even in the context of a relatively preserved percentage of CD4 cells. We hypothesized that impaired B-cell immunity to this pathogen further amplifies the immune defect. We report a shift in the B-cell compartment toward an apoptosis-prone phenotype evident early in HIV disease progression. We show that, although healthy HIV-uninfected and minimally symptomatic HIV-infected children have similar numbers of isotype-switched memory B cells, numbers of pneumococcal protein antigen-specific memory B cells were lower in HIV-infected than in HIV-uninfected children. Our data implicate defective naturally acquired B-cell pneumococcal immunity in invasive pneumococcal disease causation in HIV-infected children and highlight the need to study the functionality and duration of immune memory to novel pneumococcal protein vaccine candidates in order to optimize their effectiveness in this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
| Databáze: |
Complementary Index |
| Externí odkaz: |
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