Elucidating the Role of T cells in Protection Against and Pathogenesis of Dengue Virus Infections

ABSTRACT:

Dengue viruses (DENV) cause significantly more human disease than any other arbovirus, with hundreds of thousands of cases leading to severe disease in thousands annually. Antibodies and T cells induced by primary infection with DENV have the potential for both positive (protective) and negative (pathological) effects during subsequent DENV infections. In this review, we summarize studies that have examined T-cell responses in humans following natural infection and vaccination. We discuss studies that support a role for T cells in protection against and those that support a role for the involvement of T cells in the pathogenesis of severe disease. The mechanisms that lead to severe disease are complex, and T-cell responses are an important component that needs to be further evaluated for the development of safe and efficacious DENV vaccines.

KEYWORDS:

• dengue
• immune response
• immunopathology
• nonstructural proteins
• primary infection
• secondary infection
• T lymphocyte
• vaccine

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors would like to thank the staff of the Queen Sirikit National Institute for Child Health, Kamphaeng Phet Provincial Hospital, the Department of Virology, Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences, Thailand, for patient recruitment, blood collection, clinical and virology information. They would like to thank their colleagues in the United States and Thailand and the volunteer subjects and parents who generously contributed towards their dengue research activities for many years. This work was financially supported by the NIH grant no P01 AI34533 and U19 AI57319. The authors have no other 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 apart from those disclosed.

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

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to thank the staff of the Queen Sirikit National Institute for Child Health, Kamphaeng Phet Provincial Hospital, the Department of Virology, Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences, Thailand, for patient recruitment, blood collection, clinical and virology information. They would like to thank their colleagues in the United States and Thailand and the volunteer subjects and parents who generously contributed towards their dengue research activities for many years. This work was financially supported by the NIH grant no P01 AI34533 and U19 AI57319. The authors have no other 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 apart from those disclosed. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.