Artikel
Lack of protective immunity despite high seroprevalence of neutralizing antibodies against human metapneumovirus, Bonn, Germany
Humanes Metapneumovirus: Suszeptibilität trotz hoher Seroprävalenz neutralisierender Antikörper? Untersuchungen an einer Bonner Kohorte
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Autoren
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J. Lüsebrink
- Universität Bonn, Institut für Virologie, Bonn, Germany
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C. Wiese
- Universität Bonn, Institut für Virologie, Bonn, Germany
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A. Thiel
- Universität Bonn, Kinderklinik, Bonn, Germany
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R.L. Tillmann
- Universität Bonn, Institut für Virologie, Bonn, Germany
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V. Ditt
- Universität Bonn, Institut für Virologie, Bonn, Germany
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A. Müller
- Universität Bonn, Kinderklinik, Bonn, Germany
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O. Schildgen
- Universität Bonn, Institut für Virologie, Bonn, Germany; Kliniken der Stadt Köln gGmbH, Institut für Pathologie, Köln, Germany
| Veröffentlicht: | 2. Juni 2010 |
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Gliederung
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Introduction: Despite high perpetual seroprevalence-rates hMPV-reinfections occur frequently in all age groups. Our results demonstrate high neutralizing capacities of sera with minor decrease in individuals >69 years, leading to the hypothesis that reinfections occur because humoral immune responses play minor roles in clearance of HMPV-infections.
Material and methods: A total number of 2,000 patients' sera were randomly collected and screened for their neutralizing capacity, using the XTT-based neutralization-test.
Results: 96.21% of the analysed sera showed neutralizing effects. The majority of negative sera resides in the cohorts of the 0–9 year olds, which showed the least virus neutralization capacity, and the 70–79 year old patients. On the average the neutralizing effect is ~16% higher in the 29–69 year old patients compared to the group under 10 years. By trend a decrease of the neutralizing ability of the sera can be seen in patients older than 70 years.
Conclusions: The neutralization test does not identify the total amount of specific hMPV-antibodies but the ability of a patients' serum to neutralize the virus.Young children have not established a mature immune answer as they have not been in contact with as many pathogens as adults have. The elderly in contrast suffer from immunosenescence characterized by failures of the T-lymphocyte system. In concert with the results presented here this leads to the hypothesis that it is rather the hosts' T-cell response that clears the hMPV infection than the neutralizing humoral response.
