Measles virus infection diminishes preexisting antibodies that offer protection from other pathogens, 2019, Mina et al

Open access, https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6465/599

 

Interesting findings. These are the natural conditions the immune system has developed in over millennia. Now we have a vaccine and a handful of studies and think we know everything. Do we...?

I’m wondering what impact recalibration of the immune system by childhood measles infection might have on incidence of, say, autoimmune or other immune-related disorders. Is it all bad?

 

Sorry, I don't get that stuff about psoriasis like stuff. I just don't understand. I'm age 71 now and have psoriasis which started for me around 2-3 years ago.

I had measles at around age 7 to the best of my recollection. It was horrible as my Mother made me stay in bed with the curtains drawn and I wasn't allowed to read. This was long before TVs were common - I think we might have got our first TV when I was about 9.

It was just so horribly boring! Just lie in bed with absolutely nothing to do, just lie there. Maybe good training for my current life? At least I can look out my window now, and watch dross TV!

What I do remember about the measles was I could smell a sort of gingery smell. And also that's when I started not being able to stand having sugar in my tea. Drove my Mother wild, for years she forgot and kept putting sugar in my tea, and I couldn't drink it - just tasted disgusting to me even though before measles I'd loved sugar in my tea.

I remember when I first got on the internet at home, back in the late 90s, I found an article about how some diseases have their own smell. Never found it since - but looking at recent things about how dogs can tell if someone is about to have epileptic fit and similar stories in the press maybe it was right.

 

I would like to see a long term followup (and studies of other infections), this doesn't actually demonstrate there is long term "memory loss" of prior immunity. It simply suggests that 2 months after infection, most antibodies in circulation were focused on the measles infection, suggesting selective activation of B-cells that targeted the infection (to mature into plasma cells), versus memory B-cells. Which sounds like a more efficient process. The half life of serum IgG is around 3 weeks and the typical halflife of plasma cells is 3-10 days, but some speculate a few can live a lot longer. It would be very curious if the memory B-cells specific to other infections have been permanently eliminated (suggests very disruptive processes going on in the bone marrow/spleen), but this study merely suggests this, rather than demonstrates this. The study begs for further confirmation.

 

I am sceptical about this study. They looked at the diversity of antibody binding to small chopped up epitopes from viruses. Antibodies do not in real life blind to chopped up epitopes but to whole antigen. I think it is very likely that what they have shown is that the random noise of irrelevant antibody making by evanescent plasma cells that goes on while we are well - sort of punchbag practice for the possible fight ahead - is replaced by focused antibody response from longer lived plasma cells.

 

Did you read the other study, which conducted B cell receptor sequencing of human peripheral blood lymphocytes before and after MeV infection?
https://immunology.sciencemag.org/content/4/41/eaay6125

 

I'm not sure what that means either to be honest. B cell clones in the peripheral blood are by and large cells with nothing much to do. The ones with something to do are doing things in the lymphoid organs. I suspect people do studies of this sort because the molecular biology has made them possible. But good old-fashioned antibody tests against specific microbes are probably closer to measuring functional capacity.

It may well be that there is a well documented clinical immunodeficiency after measles but I would be more persuaded by a traditional measure of immunity to one or two important viruses rather than this sort of approach.

 

Anecdote: I contracted measles while on holiday in North Wales when I was 7. In the following year, me and my sisters seemed to be much more susceptible to seasonal bugs, and some quite unusual things - EBV (usually asymptomatic in under-teens) for me and scarlet fever for my sis. I lost half my hearing as a result.

I've seen lots of comments about whether it could be used to prevent autoimmune disease, but I suspect it is far to non-specific to be of any use whatsoever.

I hope Vincent Racianello will be doing a podcast on it shortly though.

 

I thought this was old news? David Gorski has covered measles erasing immune system memory in has excellent blog. Wasn't it discovered long ago?