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. 2022 Dec;11(1):956-963.
doi: 10.1080/22221751.2022.2053364.

Pertussis toxin neutralizing antibody response after an acellular booster vaccination in Dutch and Finnish participants of different age groups

Aapo Knuutila  1 , Pauline Versteegen  2 , Alex-Mikael Barkoff  1 , Pieter van Gageldonk  2 , Jussi Mertsola  3 , Guy Berbers  2 , Qiushui He  1   4 ; PERISCOPE Consortium  1
Affiliations

Pertussis toxin neutralizing antibody response after an acellular booster vaccination in Dutch and Finnish participants of different age groups

Aapo Knuutila et al. Emerg Microbes Infect. 2022 Dec.

Abstract

ABSTRACTPertussis incidence has increased in many countries and the disease occurs among all age groups, suggesting the need for booster immunizations through life. In addition to determining the concentration of anti-pertussis toxin (PT) antibodies, the ability of PT neutralizing antibodies (PTNAs) could be used to assess vaccine responses.Altogether 258 participants [7-10-year-old (N = 73), 11-15-year-old (N = 85), 20-35-year-old (N = 50) and 60-70-year-old (N = 50)] were included. Sera were collected before, one month, and one year after a single dose of a three pertussis component containing acellular pertussis vaccine. The adolescents were primed in childhood either by acellular or whole-cell vaccination. PTNA titres were determined by a Chinese hamster ovary cell assay and anti-PT IgG/IgA antibody concentrations by multiplex immunoassay.In all age groups, a significant increase in levels of PTNAs and anti-PT IgG was observed one month after vaccination and remained at least two-fold higher one year post-booster, in comparison to pre-booster. Young adults had the lowest response. The strongest increase in PTNAs was observed in participants who had ≥10 IU/mL concentration of anti-PT IgG antibodies pre-booster. At pre-booster, whole-cell-primed adolescents had higher PTNAs than acellular-primed peers (p = 0.047). One year post-booster, the Finnish whole-cell-primed adolescents had a higher level of PTNAs than acellular-primed adolescents (p = 0.049), however, this was not observed in Dutch adolescents. In conclusion, PTNAs increased after vaccination in all age groups, and the strongest increase was related to the presence of high pre-booster antibodies.

Keywords: Adolescent; adult; child; neutralizing antibody; pertussis; pertussis toxin; vaccination.

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Conflict of interest statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Laboratory confirmed pertussis notification rates in Finland and the Netherlands [5]. The study participants for this study were recruited from late 2017 to early 2019.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
PTNA per anti-PT IgG ratio distribution at a) pre-booster, b) one month c) one year after vaccination. Light boxplots = Finland, Grey = Netherlands. The box plots demonstrate the median, quartile range, and 1.5 times the quartile range of PTNA per anti-PT IgG ratios. Mann-Whitney U-test **p < 0.01.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
The correlation between overall anti-PT IgG concentration and PT neutralizing antibody titres was high (Pearson R = 0.829). All study samples at all three time points are presented (N = 769).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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