Modulation of vaccine response by concomitant probiotic administration

Abstract

Evidence suggests that probiotic bacteria modulate both innate and adaptive immunity in the host, and in some situations can result in reduced severity of common illnesses, such as acute rotavirus infection and respiratory infections. Responses to vaccination are increasingly being used to provide high quality information on the immunomodulatory effects of dietary components in humans. The present review focuses on the effect of probiotic administration upon vaccination response. The majority of studies investigating the impact of probiotics on responses to vaccination have been conducted in healthy adults, and at best they show modest effects of probiotics on serum or salivary IgA titres. Studies in infants and in elderly subjects are very limited, and it is too early to draw any firm conclusions regarding the potential for probiotics to act as adjuvants in vaccination. Although some studies are comparable in terms of duration of the intervention, age and characteristics of the subjects, most differ in terms of the probiotic selected. Further well designed, randomized, placebo-controlled studies are needed to understand fully the immunomodulatory properties of probiotics, whether the effects exerted are strain-dependent and age-dependent and their clinical relevance in enhancing immune protection following vaccination.

The International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics consensus statement on the scope and appropriate use of the term probiotic

“…The core benefit of support ing a healthy immune system was considered by the panel to be widely acknowl edged, but probably more strainspecific. 16,17 The diverse meaning of 'support ing a healthy immune system' , which ranges from preventing allergic disease to downregulation of inflammation to the enhancement of antiinfection activities was considered to be too broad to be consid ered a core benefit. Other benefits such as supporting the health of the reproductive tract, oral cavity, lungs, skin and gut-brain axis are promising, but evidence has not yet been linked to a broad enough crosssection of probiotics to consider these effects to be probably shared across the whole class of probiotics.…”

Influence of the microbiota on vaccine effectiveness

“…However, as noted above, studies correlating intestinal microbiota and its direct influence on vaccine efficacy have been sparse [82] and sometimes discrepant (e.g., supplementation with probiotics/prebiotics) [54]. A few studies have begun to address whether a particular microbial community composition is associated with differential vaccine responses.…”

“…Thus, an array of nutritional interventions using probiotics have been examined for their effects on vaccine responses in human populations (reviewed in [54][55][56]). Examples of these studies performed in humans are summarized in the Table 2.…”

Stool Microbiota and Vaccine Responses of Infants

“…12 Studies showing that probiotic interventions increase immune responses to oral vaccines in adults 13 and animals 14 support this hypothesis, although results in infants and children are equivocal. 15,16 New DNA-based methods that use direct sequencing of short regions of the bacterial 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene produce a detailed picture of the gut microbiota, providing the relative abundance of taxa at multiple phylogenetic levels (ie, phylum, class, order, family, and genus). 17 The intestinal microbiota of term infants is dominated by 4 major phyla: Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, and Proteobacteria.…”