Pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccines have demonstrated effectiveness in prevention of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD). 1 However, their effectiveness against non-invasive pneu-mococcal pneumonia or all-cause community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) has not been established; two recently published meta-analyses concluded that prevention of pneumococcal pneumonia could not be demonstrated for pneum...

Animal models facilitate evaluation of vaccine efficacy at relatively low cost. This study was a comparative evaluation of the immunogenicity and protective efficacy of a new 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) with a control vaccine in a mouse model. After vaccination, anti-capsular antibody levels were evaluated by pneumococcal polysaccharide (PnP) enzyme-linked immunosorbent ass...

OBJECTIVES The production of reference materials for quantifying pneumococcal antibody concentrations relies upon large scale vaccination. An alternative simple, reproducible protocol has been developed for the affinity purification of 23 serotype anti-pneumococcal capsular polysaccharide (PCP) IgG immunoglobulins. DESIGN & METHODS The purification protocol utilised IgG fractionation, capsula...

Although well-characterized in the lung, the role of platelet-activating factor (PAF) in inflammation in the central nervous system is undefined. Using rabbit models of meningitis and pneumonia, PAF was found to induce significant blood-brain barrier permeability and brain edema at doses five times lower than those required to generate leukocyte recruitment to the subarachnoid space. Both leuko...

Immunization of pregnant women can be an efficient strategy to induce early protection in infants in developing countries. Pneumococcal protein-based vaccines may have the capacity to induce pneumococcal serotype-independent protection. To understand the potential of maternal pneumococcal protein-specific antibodies in infants in high-risk areas, we studied the placental transfer of naturally a...

The present study examined the association between psychological stress, social support and antibody response to both thymus-dependent and thymus-independent vaccinations. Stressful life events in the previous year and customary social support were measured by standard questionnaires at baseline in 75 (41 females) healthy students. Antibody status was assessed at baseline, 4 and 18 weeks follow...

HIV-patients have excess of pneumococcal infection. We immunized 40 HIV-patients twice with pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (Prevnar, Pfizer) +/- a TLR9 agonist (CPG 7909). Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were stimulated with pneumococcal polysaccharides and cytokine concentrations measured. The CPG 7909 adjuvant group had significantly higher relative cytokine responses than the placebo grou...

Complement activation plays a critical role in the immune response to T-cell-dependent and T-cell-independent antigens. However, the effect of conjugation of T-cell-dependent protein carriers to T-cell-independent type 2 antigens on the requirement for complement in the humoral immune response to such antigens remains unknown. We studied the role of complement activation on the antibody respons...

INTRODUCTION The efficacy of the immune response upon vaccination in patients treated with anti-tumor necrosis factor-alpha (anti-TNF) with or without methotrexate is the subject of debate. We studied the effect of immunosuppressive treatment, including anti-TNF and methotrexate, on the response to pneumococcal polysaccharide (PPS) vaccine. METHODS Fifty-two patients treated with immunosuppre...

Children with sickle cell disease were immunized with either 2 doses of 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine followed by 1 dose of 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine or a single dose of 23-valent vaccine. Functional antibodies to 7 vaccine serotypes were measured by a flow cytometric opsonophagocytic assay (OPA) and compared with IgG anticapsular polysaccharide antibody concentrat...