title: Vaccination and heterologous immunity: educating the immune system.
abstract: This review discusses three inter-related topics: (1) the immaturity of the neonatal and infant immune response; (2) heterologous immunity, where prior infection history with unrelated pathogens alters disease outcome resulting in either enhanced protective immunity or increased immunopathology to new infections, and (3) epidemiological human vaccine studies that demonstrate vaccines can have beneficial or detrimental effects on subsequent unrelated infections. The results from the epidemiological and heterologous immunity studies suggest that the immune system has tremendous plasticity and that each new infection or vaccine that an individual is exposed to during a lifetime will potentially alter the dynamics of their immune system. It also suggests that each new infection or vaccine that an infant receives is not only perturbing the immune system but is educating the immune system and laying down the foundation for all subsequent responses. This leads to the question, is there an optimum way to educate the immune system? Should this be taken into consideration in our vaccination protocols?
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA 01605, USA.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gil
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA 01605, USA.
authors.forename: Laurie L
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Kenney
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA 01605, USA.
authors.forename: Rabinarayan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mishra
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA 01605, USA.
authors.forename: Levi B
authors.initials: LB
authors.lastname: Watkin
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA 01605, USA.
authors.forename: Nuray
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Aslan
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA 01605, USA liisa.selin@umassmed.edu.
authors.forename: Liisa K
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Selin
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003429:Cross Reactions; D006801:Humans; D064789:Immunity, Heterologous / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000276:immunology; D007113:Immunity, Innate / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000276:immunology; D007156:Immunologic Memory / Q000187:drug effects*; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D013601:T-Lymphocytes; D014611:Vaccination; D014765:Viral Vaccines / Q000276:immunology*; D014777:Virus Diseases / Q000276:immunology / Q000517:prevention & control*
chemical_list: D014765:Viral Vaccines
keywords: Crossreactive; Heterologous immunity; Neonatal; T cells; Vaccines