Dr. Raj Kurupati and colleagues from the Wistar Institute, University of Pennsylvania, and Duke University Medical Center showed that an individual’s response to developing immunity after flu vaccination depends on his/her ethnic background.
H1N1 influenza virus. Image credit: CDC Influenza Laboratory.
Influenza is a major public health problem. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), seasonal flu severely afflicts 3 to 5 million individuals annually, and results in 250,000 to 500,000 deaths worldwide.
Particularly susceptible are pregnant women, children less than two years old, elders more than 65 years old, and immuno-compromised individuals.
Depending on the prevalent flu strains, new vaccines are formulated every year. However, these vaccines do not provide uniform protection to all individuals.
There is a need for finding better markers that would predict effective protection from flu.
Dr. Kurupati, the lead author on the study published in the journal Oncotarget, along with coworkers identified that race-related differences in antibody response to flu vaccine can be attributed to gene expression profiles prior to vaccination.
The researchers showed that African Americans mounted significantly higher neutralizing and IgG antibody titers to H1N1 compared to Caucasians, indicating better protection.
The difference between the groups is driven by the younger African Americans (30 – 40 yr. old).
They also observed that the heightened response in African Americans diminishes with age; there was no significant response difference in older African Americans (>65 yr. old) compared to Caucasians.
Some of these differences could be ascribed to higher number of circulating B-cells in younger African Americans, indicating higher basal immune surveillance.
This study fits in the broader context where it was recently shown that African Americans may have better protection from infectious diseases, but are more prone to autoimmune diseases.
The presence of Neanderthal DNA in European genomes through interbreeding may amplify these differences between African and European ancestral lineage.
In this age of personalized medicine, the impact of racial background may not be overemphasized. However, racial indifference in scientific studies is painfully obvious.
For example, majority of genome-wide association studies that aim to identify genes or polymorphisms linked to particular diseases are performed on individuals of European descent.
Although this trend is changing, owing, in part, to the guidelines of funding agencies, a lot of ground still needs to be covered.
Studies like the one performed by Dr. Kurupati and colleagues are critically important in highlighting key racial differences in treating and managing population health.
Results from this study may be used to design better vaccines by taking ethnic background into account.
Finally, studies like this may not just help one racial group, but also increase the greater overall understanding of the disease or physiology.
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Kurupati R. et al. Race-related differences in antibody responses to the inactivated influenza vaccine are linked to distinct pre-vaccination gene expression profiles in blood. Oncotarget, published online August 30, 2016; doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.11704
