Delayed and reduced adaptive humoral immune responses in children with shigellosis compared with in adults

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Published on: February 27, 2019

R Raqib1, F Qadri, P SarkEr

  • 1International Centre for Diarrhoeal Diseases Research, ICDDR, B, Dhaka, Bangladesh. rubhana@icddrb.org

Scandinavian Journal of Immunology
|April 23, 2002
PubMed

Insights

Children with shigellosis exhibit weaker and delayed adaptive immune responses compared to adults. This impacts their susceptibility, disease severity, and mortality rates, highlighting a critical difference in immune development.

Area of Science:

  • Immunology
  • Infectious Diseases
  • Pediatrics

Background:

  • Shigella infection disproportionately affects children, leading to severe disease and higher mortality.
  • Adaptive immune responses are crucial for controlling bacterial infections.
  • Previous studies suggest age-related differences in immune responses to pathogens.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate and compare antigen-specific adaptive immune responses to Shigella infection in pediatric and adult patients.
  • To determine if differences in immune responses explain the increased susceptibility and severity of shigellosis in children.

Main Methods:

  • Studied antigen-specific immunoglobulin (IgM, IgA, IgG) antibody-secreting cell (ASC) responses in pediatric (2-10 years) and adult (18-45 years) shigellosis patients.
  • Analyzed kinetics and magnitude of ASC responses to Shigella antigens (invasion plasmid coded antigen B [Ipa-B] and lipopolysaccharide [LPS]).
  • Measured secretory IgA levels in stool and in vitro cytokine production (TNF-alpha, IFN-gamma) from peripheral blood mononuclear cells.

Main Results:

  • Pediatric patients showed delayed and lower peak frequencies of antigen-specific ASCs (2-4% of total ASCs) compared to adults (8-15%).
  • Kinetics of LPS-specific IgG subclass titres varied significantly between younger children, older children, and adults.
  • Adults exhibited a rapid induction of stool LPS-specific IgA and higher in vitro production of TNF-alpha and IFN-gamma in response to Shigella antigens during the acute phase.

Conclusions:

  • Pediatric patients with shigellosis demonstrate significantly reduced and delayed adaptive immune responses compared to adults.
  • These immune deficits in children likely contribute to their increased susceptibility, disease severity, and higher mortality rates from Shigella infection.
  • Findings underscore the importance of age-specific immune maturation in combating infectious diseases.

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