Work

New Evidence for the Complexity of the Population Structure of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Increases the Diagnostic and Biologic Challenges

Year: 2016

Type: article

Abstract: developing serotype-independent vaccines on the basis of these targets are not promising.Major limitations of the study-which are probably unresolvable because of the human model-are that the results addressed only one pneumococcal serotype and that only easily accessible circulating B cells were measured, whereas typical B-cell reservoirs like spleen, lymph nodes, and bone marrow were omitted.Particularly, the longlived population of plasma cells residing in the bone marrow could not be assessed, and we still do not know their role in mucosal protection against pneumococci in men ( 14).Other limitations, such as using only simple methods like enzyme-linked immunospot assay to discriminate plasma cells from the memory B cells instead of flow cytometry, can and should be addressed in future studies.In conclusion, this study identified polysaccharide memory B cells as an immunological correlate for mucosal protection, which, if confirmed, could become an immunological outcome parameter in studies investigating pneumococcal vaccines.

Source: American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine

DOI: 10.1164/rccm.201607-1431ed

Authors: Véronique Dartois, Kohta Saito, Thulasi Warrier, Carl Nathan

Institutions: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Weill Cornell Medicine

Language: English

Topic: Tuberculosis Research and Epidemiology

Subfield: Infectious Diseases

Field: Medicine

Domain: Health Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funder: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases