Pertussis toxin neutralizing antibody response after an acellular booster vaccination in Dutch and Finnish participants of different age groups

ABSTRACT

Pertussis incidence has increased in many countries and the disease occurs among all age groups, suggesting the need for booster immunizations through life. In addition to determining the concentration of anti-pertussis toxin (PT) antibodies, the ability of PT neutralizing antibodies (PTNAs) could be used to assess vaccine responses.

Altogether 258 participants [7–10-year-old (N = 73), 11–15-year-old (N = 85), 20–35-year-old (N = 50) and 60–70-year-old (N = 50)] were included. Sera were collected before, one month, and one year after a single dose of a three pertussis component containing acellular pertussis vaccine. The adolescents were primed in childhood either by acellular or whole-cell vaccination. PTNA titres were determined by a Chinese hamster ovary cell assay and anti-PT IgG/IgA antibody concentrations by multiplex immunoassay.

In all age groups, a significant increase in levels of PTNAs and anti-PT IgG was observed one month after vaccination and remained at least two-fold higher one year post-booster, in comparison to pre-booster. Young adults had the lowest response. The strongest increase in PTNAs was observed in participants who had ≥10 IU/mL concentration of anti-PT IgG antibodies pre-booster. At pre-booster, whole-cell-primed adolescents had higher PTNAs than acellular-primed peers (p = 0.047). One year post-booster, the Finnish whole-cell-primed adolescents had a higher level of PTNAs than acellular-primed adolescents (p = 0.049), however, this was not observed in Dutch adolescents. In conclusion, PTNAs increased after vaccination in all age groups, and the strongest increase was related to the presence of high pre-booster antibodies.

KEYWORDS:

• Adolescent
• adult
• child
• neutralizing antibody
• pertussis
• pertussis toxin
• vaccination

Acknowledgments

Elisa Knuutila, Institute of Biomedicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland, and Yuxiao Zhang, Department of Medical Microbiology, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China, are acknowledged for their indispensable technical assistance in performing the CHO cell assays. Tuula Rantasalo, Elisa Knuutila, Johanna Teräsjärvi, Elina Tenhu, Kaisu Kaistinen, and Raakel Luoto, Institute of Biomedicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland, are acknowledged for their contribution in the sample collection and work at the clinic during the BERT study. Members involved with the overall BERT study are acknowledged as earlier described [30].

The purified PT antigen was kindly provided by GlaxoSmithKline, Belgium.

Data sharing statement

Individual participant data that underlie the results reported in this article, have been de-identified and deposited in the central database of the PERISCOPE Consortium and can be accessed by a request to the PERISCOPE management team.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the PERISCOPE (pertussis correlates of protection Europe) project. The PERISCOPE project has received funding from the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking under grant agreement number 115910. This Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme; the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations; and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.)