The Immune Correlates of Protection against Symptomatic Enterovirus 71 Infections in Young Children

Understanding the correlates of protection against clinical illnesses of enterovirus 71 is important to the optimization of future vaccine design and the development of antiviral agents. The role of pre-existing cell-mediated immunity against newly emerging variants of EV71 is largely unclear in children. We would like to conduct a prospective and longitudinal study to enroll and follow up a community cohort of healthy young children prior to and after the EV71 endemic. The breadth and specificity of EV71 -specific T and B cell responses will be examined. We would determine the relationship between the pre-existing cell immune profiles, i.e. phenotype, frequency, breadth, and function of EV71-specific T cells, and the clinical protections, i.e. asymptomatic infection, favorable outcome, and viral load control, in young children who lack neutralizing antibody in the setting of natural infection. The pre-existing EV71 -specific memory B cell would be separately and rigorously examined at the cellular and molecular level. The mapping of cross-reactive epitopes within EV71 variants would help inform the design of broadly protective vaccines in the near future.

Project ID:PC10309-0151
External Project ID:MOST103-2314-B182A-116