Age related differences in humoral immune response to respiratory syncytial virus infection in adults

Abstract

The humoral immune response to Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) was investigated in old and young adults. RSV was identified by culture and/or reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in 52 elderly (mean age 74 years) and 15 young adults (mean age 33 years) with respiratory illness. Preinfection serum neutralizing and binding antibody levels were similar in the two age groups, although older persons had significantly greater serum neutralizing responses to group A RSV (log(2) 2.8 increase vs. 1.7, P = 0.001) and group B RSV (log(2) 2.8 vs. 1.3, P = 0.0008). Older persons also had significantly increased responses to the RSV F (log(2) 2.9 vs. 1.1, P < 0.0001), Ga (log(2) 2.1 vs. 1.3, P = 0.0007), and Gb proteins (log(2) 2.7 vs. 1.4, P = 0.0004). The exuberant antibody response seen in older adults may be a reflection of greater viral load and antigenic stimulation and/or a shift from Th1 to Th2 dominant immune response with aging. The relationship of immune response to disease pathogenesis in older persons deserves further study.

Palivizumab epitope–displaying virus-like particles protect rodents from RSV challenge

“…Due to multiple exposures to RSV, normal adult human plasma contains RSV-specific antibodies (2,33). Human IgG in each of 42 adult plasma samples bound efficiently to VLP-19 and also to sF protein (Table 2 and Figure 3D).…”

Age-Related Vitamin D Deficiency Is Associated with the Immune Response in Children with Community-Acquired Pneumonia

“…In addition, the results also showed the influence of age on these vitamin D-related immune markers in CAP children aged less than 5 y old. Many previous studies have reported that age is always associated with the immune status of patients with infectious diseases (36,37). CAP, as a respiratory infection disease, also showed an age-related association for its etiology and symptoms (38).…”

Comparison of the Safety and Immunogenicity of 2 Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) Vaccines— Nonadjuvanted Vaccine or Vaccine Adjuvanted with Alum—Given Concomitantly with Influenza Vaccine to High‐Risk Elderly Individuals

“…Because all adults have measurable antibody to RSV and responses to vaccination have correlated directly with prevaccination titers in prior RSV vaccine studies, we chose to evaluate this vaccine in terms of the percentage of subjects who achieved high levels of NA that might be expected to be relatively protective [21,[27][28][29]. On the basis of studies of natural infection, and assuming a threshold exists that serum antibody levels are unlikely to exceed, we chose the 67th percentile of baseline titers in an elderly population as a target to judge immunogenicity [30,31]. After vaccination with either RSV vaccine formulation, nearly 80% of vaccinees developed titers that exceeded this target level of antibody.…”