Corcoran, Amanda and Doyle, Sean and Waldron, David and Nicholson, Alfred and Mahon, Bernard P. (2000) Impaired Gamma Interferon Responses against Parvovirus B19 by Recently Infected Children. Journal of Virology, 74 (21). pp. 9903-9910. ISSN 0022-538X

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Abstract

Parvovirus B19 is the causative agent of “fifth disease” of childhood. It has been implicated in a variety of conditions, including unsuccessful pregnancy and rheumatoid arthritis, and is a potential contaminant of blood products. There has been little study of immunity to parvovirus B19, and the exact nature of the protective humoral and cell-mediated immune response is unclear. Immune responses to purified virus capsid proteins, VP1 and VP2, were examined from a cohort of recently infected children and compared with responses from long-term convalescent volunteers. The results demonstrate that antibody reactivity is primarily maintained against conformational epitopes in VP1 and VP2. The unique region of VP1 appears to be a major target for cell-mediated immune responses, particularly in recently infected individuals. We confirm that antibody reactivity against linear epitopes of VP2 is lost shortly after infection but find no evidence of the proposed phenotypic switch in either the subclass of parvovirus B19-specific antibody or the pattern of cytokine production by antigen-specific T cells. The dominant subclass of specific antibody detected from both children and adults was immunoglobulin G1. No evidence was found for interleukin 4 (IL-4) or IL-5 production by isolated lymphocytes from children or adults. In contrast, lymphocytes from convalescent adults produced a typical type 1 response associated with high levels of IL-2 and gamma interferon (IFN-g). However, we observed a significant (P < 0.001) deficit in the production of IFN-g in response to VP1 or VP2 from lymphocytes isolated from children. Taken together, these results imply that future parvovirus B19 vaccines designed for children will require the use of conformationally preserved capsid proteins incorporating Th1 driving adjuvants. Furthermore, these data suggest novel mechanisms whereby parvovirus B19 infection may contribute to rheumatoid arthritis and unsuccessful pregnancy.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This work was funded by the Irish Health Research Board. B. P. Mahon is a Wellcome Trust/HRB New Blood Fellow. We thank Biotrin International, Dublin, Ireland, for providing infected Sf9 cells expressing recombinant VP1 and VP2.
Keywords:	Impaired Gamma Interferon Responses; Parvovirus B19; Infected; Children; Impaired interferon-g responses;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > Biology
Item ID:	7149
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1128/JVI.74.21.9903-9910.2000
Depositing User:	Bernard Mahon
Date Deposited:	01 Jul 2016 16:17
Journal or Publication Title:	Journal of Virology
Publisher:	American Society for Microbiology
Refereed:	Yes
Funders:	Health Research Board (HRB)
URI:	http://jvi.asm.org
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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