T-Cell Responses after Rotavirus Infection or Vaccination in Children: A Systematic Review.

Natasha Makabilo Laban,Martin Rhys Goodier,Roma Chilengi,Michelo Simuyandi,Samuel Bosomprah,Obvious Nchimunya Chilyabanyama,Caroline Chisenga

doi:10.3390/v14030459

Abstract

Cellular immunity against rotavirus in children is incompletely understood. This review describes the current understanding of T-cell immunity to rotavirus in children. A systematic literature search was conducted in Embase, MEDLINE, Web of Science, and Global Health databases using a combination of “t-cell”, “rotavirus” and “child” keywords to extract data from relevant articles published from January 1973 to March 2020. Only seventeen articles were identified. Rotavirus-specific T-cell immunity in children develops and broadens reactivity with increasing age. Whilst occurring in close association with antibody responses, T-cell responses are more transient but can occur in absence of detectable antibody responses. Rotavirus-induced T-cell immunity is largely of the gut homing phenotype and predominantly involves Th1 and cytotoxic subsets that may be influenced by IL-10 Tregs. However, rotavirus-specific T-cell responses in children are generally of low frequencies in peripheral blood and are limited in comparison to other infecting pathogens and in adults. The available research reviewed here characterizes the T-cell immune response in children. There is a need for further research investigating the protective associations of rotavirus-specific T-cell responses against infection or vaccination and the standardization of rotavirus-specific T-cells assays in children.

Highlights

Rotavirus is the leading cause of life-threatening diarrhea among young children, in those below five years of age [1,2]
In children, repeated rotavirus infection leads to a lower likelihood of subsequent rotavirus infections and reduced occurrence of moderate to severe diarrheal disease suggesting the development of immune memory [9]
After the removal of 906 duplicate articles, a resulting total of 1195 articles were screened for eligibility based on title and abstract and an additional 1162 articles were excluded because they were non-primary research (n = 710), were not about rotavirus in humans (n = 288,) did not include children (n = 96), did not report T-cell responses (n = 72)

Summary

Introduction

Rotavirus is the leading cause of life-threatening diarrhea among young children, in those below five years of age [1,2]. Despite being discovered nearly half a century ago in 1973 and more than a decade since vaccine introduction, immune mechanisms, and correlates of protection against rotavirus remain poorly understood [7]. In children, repeated rotavirus infection leads to a lower likelihood of subsequent rotavirus infections and reduced occurrence of moderate to severe diarrheal disease suggesting the development of immune memory [9]. This acquired, non-sterilizing immunity is derived from a combination of gut secretory and humoral antibody and cell-mediated immune effectors with neutralizing antibodies directed against the viral capsid proteins and viral epitope recognition by T-cells thought to play an important role in protection [8]. Immune parameters correlating with protection against rotavirus in humans are yet to be demonstrated [10]

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Conclusion