Abstract
Early life immunity is a complex field of research and there are still gaps in knowledge regarding the detailed mechanism of maternal antibody transfer, the impact of maternal antibodies on infant vaccine responses and the ontogeny of human early life immunity. A comprehensive understanding is necessary to identify requirements for early life vaccines and to improve early childhood immunization. New immunological methods have facilitated performing research in the youngest, however, some questions can only be addressed in animal models. To date, mostly murine models are used to study neonatal and infant immunity since they are well-described, easy to use and cost effective. Given their limitations especially in the transfer biology of maternal antibodies and the lack of infectivity of numerous human pathogens, this opinion piece discusses the potential and prerequisites of the nonhuman primate model in studying early life immunity and maternal antibody transfer.
Highlights
The ontogeny of early life immunity is a complex field of research, partly due to the vulnerable population of interest
There are gaps in knowledge regarding the ontogeny of early life immunity and the mechanisms and effects of maternal antibody transfer
nonhuman primates (NHP) could be a promising model to study the immune response to vaccination in early life, especially regarding the clinical relevance of blunting through maternal antibodies, to assess mucosal immune responses to vaccination and to improve neonatal vaccine formulations
Summary
The ontogeny of early life immunity is a complex field of research, partly due to the vulnerable population of interest. In 2018, the mortality rate for children under the age of five years was 3.9%, and approximately half of it was due to communicable diseases, which translated to 2.5 million young children dying that year of potentially vaccine-preventable diseases [3] This shows the need for a better understanding of early life immunity which could help improving immunization, saving lives. Several research hypotheses are difficult to investigate in human newborns calling for the optimal surrogate animal model This opinion piece briefly summarizes the state of knowledge of early life immunity and of maternal antibody transfer, discusses currently used animal models and elaborates the potential role of nonhuman primates (NHP) in addressing open research questions
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