Cox Momodou, Adetifa Jane U, Noho-Konteh Fatou, Sanyang Lady C, Drammeh Abdoulie, Plebanski Magdalena, Whittle Hilton C, Rowland-Jones Sarah L, Robertson Iain, Flanagan Katie L
Infant Immunology Group, Vaccines and Immunity Theme, MRC Unit, P.O. Box 273, Fajara, The Gambia.
School of Health & Biomedical Science, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3083, Australia.
Vaccines (Basel). 2020 Jul 22;8(3):407. doi: 10.3390/vaccines8030407.
Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection rates approach 100% by the first year of life in low-income countries. It is not known if this drives changes to innate immunity in early life and thereby altered immune reactivity to infections and vaccines. Given the panoply of sex differences in immunity, it is feasible that any immunological effects of HCMV would differ in males and females. We analysed ex vivo innate cytokine responses to a panel of toll-like receptor (TLR) ligands in 108 nine-month-old Gambian males and females participating in a vaccine trial. We found evidence that HCMV suppressed reactivity to TLR2 and TLR7/8 stimulation in females but not males. This is likely to contribute to sex differences in responses to infections and vaccines in early life and has implications for the development of TLR ligands as vaccine adjuvants. Development of an effective HCMV vaccine would be able to circumvent some of these potentially negative effects of HCMV infection in childhood.
在低收入国家，人类巨细胞病毒（HCMV）的感染率在一岁前接近100%。目前尚不清楚这是否会导致早期生命中固有免疫的变化，从而改变对感染和疫苗的免疫反应性。鉴于免疫方面存在诸多性别差异，HCMV的任何免疫效应在男性和女性中有所不同是可行的。我们分析了参与疫苗试验的108名九个月大的冈比亚男性和女性对一组 Toll 样受体（TLR）配体的体外固有细胞因子反应。我们发现有证据表明，HCMV抑制了女性对TLR2和TLR7/8刺激的反应性，而男性则未受影响。这可能导致早期生命中对感染和疫苗反应的性别差异，并对TLR配体作为疫苗佐剂的开发产生影响。开发一种有效的HCMV疫苗将能够规避HCMV感染在儿童期的一些潜在负面影响。
