Failure of Naturally Acquired Rhinovirus Infections to Produce Temporal Immunity to Heterologous Serotypes

Abstract

Nine naturally acquired rhinovirus infections in 31 asthmatic and nonasthmatic children were succeeded rapidly (2 to 26 days) by infections with heterologous rhinovirus.

A study of infective and other factors in exacerbations of chronic bronchitis

“…The highly significant difference between the isolation rates of rhinoviruses in exacerbations and routine attendances suggests that in patients with chronic bronchitis infection by rhinoviruses is seldom confined to the upper respiratory tract and that these agents have a particular tendency to provoke an exacerbation. It seems probable that their importance is due to their large number of antigenically distinct serotypes (Roebuck 1976) and the absence of cross-immunity between them (Minor et al 1974b;Horn et al 1979). Thus, if a bronchitic is infected by a rhinovirus he would be unlikely to escape an exacerbation unless he was immune as a result of a recent infection with that particular serotype.…”

Human rhinoviruses: The cold wars resume

“…But detection rate data do not comprehensively represent HRV circulation patterns because sequential infections by different strains occur and may appear as unbroken symptomatic episodes during a single observation period ( Fig. 4) (Phillips et al, 1968;Minor et al, 1974c); an occurrence which is rarely examined. In other instances, multiple HRV strains can be isolated (Cooney and Kenny, 1977;Cooney et al, 1972) or detected (Renwick et al, 2007;Lee et al, 2007;Peltola et al, 2008) from a single specimen indicating a capacity for HRV co-infection.…”

Early-life heterologous rhinovirus infections induce an exaggerated asthma-like phenotype

“…8 RV infections do not induce specific immunity to reinfection by heterologous serotypes, even if viruses are from the same species (eg, RV-A1A and RV-A2). 9,10 RVs are divided into 3 species (A, B, and C), which comprise more than 160 antigenically distinct strains. Recurrent RV infections could result in greater degrees of airway inflammation and the potential for airway remodeling and loss of lung function over time.…”