Viral Zoonosis and Adaptation, Heinrich Pette Institute, Leibniz Institute for Experimental Virology, Hamburg, Germany.
Bernhard-Nocht-Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany.
Vaccine. 2015 Dec 8;33(49):6949-54. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2015.08.044. Epub 2015 Aug 25.
Sex, gender and age have an impact on incidence and severity of several infectious diseases. Here, we analyzed reported human cases of avian H7N9 influenza A virus infections for potential sex-dependent incidence and mortality. We report that females in their reproductive years display an increased tendency to die of H7N9 influenza than males (female-to-male ratio=1.2). Next, we challenged this potential sex-dependent difference in influenza disease outcome using a mouse infection model. In general, female mice underwent more severe disease than male mice upon infection with various influenza A virus subtypes, such as H7N9, 2009 pH1N1 and H3N2. However, morbidity and mortality were most significantly affected in H7N9 influenza virus infected female mice associated with an increased inflammatory host response. Thus, our mouse infection model described here might assist future investigations on the underlying mechanisms of sex-dependent disease outcome upon zoonotic H7N9 influenza virus infection. Moreover, our findings might help to guide patient management strategies and current vaccine recommendations.
性别和年龄会影响多种传染病的发病率和严重程度。在这里，我们分析了已报告的人类感染禽流感 H7N9 病毒病例，以探讨其发病和死亡率是否存在性别依赖性。我们报告称，处于生育年龄的女性死于 H7N9 流感的倾向高于男性（女性与男性的比例为 1.2）。接下来，我们使用小鼠感染模型来验证这种潜在的性别依赖性流感疾病结局差异。一般来说，感染 H7N9、2009 pH1N1 和 H3N2 等各种甲型流感病毒亚型后，雌性小鼠的疾病严重程度比雄性小鼠更严重。然而，H7N9 流感病毒感染的雌性小鼠的发病率和死亡率受到的影响最为显著，这与宿主炎症反应增加有关。因此，我们在这里描述的小鼠感染模型可能有助于未来对人感染 H7N9 流感病毒后的性别依赖性疾病结局的潜在机制进行研究。此外，我们的研究结果可能有助于指导患者管理策略和当前的疫苗推荐。
