Review of the laboratory approaches to the detection of antibody and cell-mediated immunity to pertussis disease and vaccine

Abstract

Immune responses to whole cell and acellular pertussis vaccines have been evaluated using both humoral and cellular immune measures. Methods used to evaluate humoral responses have included ELISA to specific pertussis components, functional neutralization assays to pertussis toxin, and agglutination responses to whole pertussis organisms. Cellular responses after both whole cell and acellular vaccines and natural pertussis disease have also been evaluated by cytokine measurements and mitogenic responses. In general, the humoral responses to both whole cell and acellular vaccines have varied somewhat with the different vaccines, and have rapidly waned after vaccination, but memory B cells persist. Cellular immune responses after whole cell pertussis vaccines and natural disease generate predominantly Th1 responses, while acellular vaccines generate mixed Th1/Th2 responses. In spite of this knowledge, a number of unanswered questions remain as to how the immune responses to pertussis vaccines relate to protection against disease.

Keywords::

• cell mediated immunity
• CHO cell neutralization
• ELISA
• micro-agglutination
• pertussis

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The author has no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Key issues

In spite of all of all the knowledge that we have about immune responses to pertussis, there are a number of immunologic challenges that remain. These include:

• What are the factors that stimulate very different immune responses to whole-cell and acellular pertussis vaccines?

• What immunologic studies could be used to compare responses to aP and wP with the goal of understanding protective responses?

• What are the implications of the different immune responses to aP and wP?

• How can we expand our knowledge of the immune responses to design better vaccines?

Notes