Current perspectives in assessing humoral immunity after measles vaccination

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Repeated measles outbreaks in countries with relatively high vaccine coverage are mainly due to failure to vaccinate and importation; however, cases in immunized individuals exist raising questions about suboptimal measles vaccine-induced humoral immunity and/or waning immunity in a low measles-exposure environment.

Areas covered: The plaque reduction neutralization measurement of functional measles-specific antibodies correlates with protection is the gold standard in measles serology, but it does not assess cellular-immune or other parameters that may be associated with durable and/or protective immunity after vaccination. Additional correlates of protection and long-term immunity and new determinants/signatures of vaccine responsiveness such as specific CD46 and IFI44L genetic variants associated with neutralizing antibody titers after measles vaccination are under investigation. Current and future systems biology studies, coupled with new technology/assays and analytical approaches, will lead to an increasingly sophisticated understanding of measles vaccine-induced humoral immunity and will identify ‘signatures’ of protective and durable immune responses.

Expert opinion: This will translate into the development of highly predictive assays of measles vaccine efficacy, effectiveness, and durability for prospective identification of potential low/non-responders and susceptible individuals who require additional vaccine doses. Such new advances may drive insights into the development of new/improved vaccine formulations and delivery systems.

KEYWORDS:

• Measles
• measles vaccine
• measles-mumps-rubella vaccine
• genetic association studies
• genetic variation
• gene polymorphisms
• gene expression
• systems biology
• antibody
• immunity
• humoral
• immunity

Disclosure of whether any or part of the data has been previously published

Figure 1 in this review has been previously published (Hum Genet. 2017;136:421–435, PMID: 28289848) [126, 127] and is used with permission from Human Genetics.

Declaration of interest

G.A. Poland is the chair of a Safety Evaluation Committee for novel investigational vaccine trials being conducted by Merck Research Laboratories. G.A. Poland offers consultative advice on vaccine development to Merck & Co. Inc., CSL Biotherapies, Avianax, Dynavax, Novartis Vaccines and Therapeutics, Emergent Biosolutions, Adjuvance, Microdermis, Seqirus, NewLink, Protein Sciences, GSK Vaccines, and Sanofi Pasteur. He holds three patents related to measles and vaccinia peptide research. R.B. Kennedy has received funding from Merck Research Laboratories to study waning immunity to measles and mumps after immunization with MMR-II. I.G. Ovsyannikova holds three patents related to measles and vaccinia peptide research. 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.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was supported by the National Institute of Allergy And Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health under Award Numbers R01AI033144 and R37AI048793. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.