Influenza Virus Infection Induces a Narrow Antibody Response in Children but a Broad Recall Response in Adults
Philip Meade, Guillermina Kuan, Shirin Strohmeier, Hannah E. Maier, Fatima Amanat, Ángel Balmaseda, Kimihito Ito, Ericka Kirkpatrick, Andres Javier, Lionel Gresh, Raffael Nachbagauer, Aubree Gordon, Florian Krammer
Abstract
It is known since Thomas Francis, Jr. published his first paper on original antigenic sin in 1960 that the first infection(s) with influenza virus leaves a special immunological imprint which shapes immune responses to future infections with antigenically related influenza virus strains. Imprinting has been implicated in both protective effects as well as blunting of the immune response to vaccines. Despite the fact that this phenomenon was already described almost 60 years ago, we have very little detailed knowledge of the characteristics and breadth of the immune response to the first exposure(s) to influenza virus in life and how this compares to later exposure as adults. Here, we investigate these immune responses in detail using an influenza virus protein microarray. While our findings are mostly descriptive in nature and based on a small sample size, they provide a strong basis for future large-scale studies to better understand imprinting effects.