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Pathogens
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Sero-Epidemiology of Natural Infections and Vaccination
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Sero-Epidemiology of Natural Infections and Vaccination

A special issue of Pathogens (ISSN 2076-0817). This special issue belongs to the section "Immunological Responses and Immune Defense Mechanisms".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2022) | Viewed by 12058

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Ruklanthi de Alwis

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Duke-NUS Medical School Singapore, Singapore City 168753, Singapore
Interests: coronaviruses; arboviruses; vaccines; antibody epitope mapping; antibody effector functions; sero-epidemiology
Prof. Dr. Stephen Baker

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 0QQ, UK
Interests: molecular microbiology; enteric infections; shigella; salmonella spp.; host-pathogen interactions; infectious disease dynamics; drugs and vaccines

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The COVID-19 pandemic has reiterated both the importance of studying infectious diseases and the vital role of vaccines in our battle against them. Infectious disease epidemiology allows us to investigate both the burden of infections and diseases, as well as the associated risk factors. Sero-epidemiology is the study of infections, diseases, and vaccines in a population utilizing pathogen-specific antibody measurements. Unlike studying infectious disease epidemiology using disease cases or deaths, sero-epidemiology is commonly able detect both symptomatic and asymptomatic infections, thereby capturing the true exposure, burden, and transmission of a pathogen in the community. When applied to vaccine responses, sero-epidemiology can be used to assess the protective immunity (especially if correlates of protection are known) provided by particular vaccines in different populations, demographic factors, risk factor groups, etc.

Antibodies come in different types, with each type providing us with different information about the pathogen of interest. For example, IgM is produced during the acute phase of an infection and usually indicates current or recent infection, IgA is predominantly produced and provides defense at mucosal sites, IgG is a long-term antibody isotype and indicates a history of infection and disease. Investigating the sero-prevalence of a pathogen in a population is vital for surveillance, vaccination programs, assessment of herd immunity, and diseases where baseline immunity to one pathogen may exacerbate disease from another pathogen. Despite the obvious advantages of sero-epidemiology, there are clear gaps in our understanding of the sero-prevalence of many circulating pathogens and sero-immunity of commonly used vaccines. Furthermore, the majority of studies are conducted in healthy adults, and therefore very little sero-epidemiology information exists on demographic groups such as children under 5, the elderly, pregnant women, ethnic minorities, etc. Additionally, as IgG in circulating blood is most commonly measured for sero-epidemiology studies, the utility of assessing other antibody isotypes in other tissues for pathogens associated with respiratory, enteric, urinary tract, or intranasal vaccines is unclear.

This Special Issue, launched by Pathogens and titled Sero-Epidemiology of Natural Infection and Vaccination, aims to display the current research landscape and address some of the above-described gaps in our knowledge. Therefore, we invite and welcome colleagues to submit both original research articles and review articles on the subject.

Dr. Ruklanthi de Alwis
Prof. Dr. Stephen Bake
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Pathogens is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • antibody responses
  • sero-epidemiology
  • immuno-epidemiology
  • viruses
  • bacteria
  • vaccines

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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10 pages, 834 KiB  
Article
Comparative Performance of Recombinant GRA6, GRA7, and GRA14 for the Serodetection of T. gondii Infection and Analysis of IgG Subclasses in Human Sera from the Philippines
by Rochelle Haidee Ybañez and Yoshifumi Nishikawa
Pathogens 2022, 11(2), 277; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/pathogens11020277 - 21 Feb 2022
Viewed by 1706
Abstract
Highly specific and sensitive diagnostic methods are vital for the effective control and treatment of toxoplasmosis. Routine diagnosis is primarily serological because T. gondii infections stimulate persistently high IgG antibody responses. The sensitivity and specificity of methods are crucial factors for the proper [...] Read more.
Highly specific and sensitive diagnostic methods are vital for the effective control and treatment of toxoplasmosis. Routine diagnosis is primarily serological because T. gondii infections stimulate persistently high IgG antibody responses. The sensitivity and specificity of methods are crucial factors for the proper diagnosis of toxoplasmosis, primarily dependent on the antigens used in different assays. In the present study, we compared the serodiagnostic performances of three recombinant dense granule antigens, namely, the GRA6, GRA7, and GRA14, to detect IgG antibodies against T. gondii in human sera from the Philippines. Moreover, we evaluated the IgG1, IgG2, IgG3, and IgG4 responses against the different recombinant antigens, which has not been performed previously. Our results revealed that the TgGRA7 has consistently displayed superior diagnostic capability, while TgGRA6 can be a satisfactory alternative antigen among the GRA proteins. Furthermore, IgG1 is the predominant subclass stimulated by the different recombinant antigens. This study’s results provide options to researchers and manufacturers to choose recombinant antigens suitable for their purpose. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sero-Epidemiology of Natural Infections and Vaccination)
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Review

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15 pages, 1758 KiB  
Review
Serology as a Tool to Assess Infectious Disease Landscapes and Guide Public Health Policy
by Andrea H. Haselbeck, Justin Im, Kristi Prifti, Florian Marks, Marianne Holm and Raphaël M. Zellweger
Pathogens 2022, 11(7), 732; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/pathogens11070732 - 27 Jun 2022
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 4516
Abstract
Understanding the local burden and epidemiology of infectious diseases is crucial to guide public health policy and prioritize interventions. Typically, infectious disease surveillance relies on capturing clinical cases within a healthcare system, classifying cases by etiology and enumerating cases over a period of [...] Read more.
Understanding the local burden and epidemiology of infectious diseases is crucial to guide public health policy and prioritize interventions. Typically, infectious disease surveillance relies on capturing clinical cases within a healthcare system, classifying cases by etiology and enumerating cases over a period of time. Disease burden is often then extrapolated to the general population. Serology (i.e., examining serum for the presence of pathogen-specific antibodies) has long been used to inform about individuals past exposure and immunity to specific pathogens. However, it has been underutilized as a tool to evaluate the infectious disease burden landscape at the population level and guide public health decisions. In this review, we outline how serology provides a powerful tool to complement case-based surveillance for determining disease burden and epidemiology of infectious diseases, highlighting its benefits and limitations. We describe the current serology-based technologies and illustrate their use with examples from both the pre- and post- COVID-19-pandemic context. In particular, we review the challenges to and opportunities in implementing serological surveillance in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), which bear the brunt of the global infectious disease burden. Finally, we discuss the relevance of serology data for public health decision-making and describe scenarios in which this data could be used, either independently or in conjunction with case-based surveillance. We conclude that public health systems would greatly benefit from the inclusion of serology to supplement and strengthen existing case-based infectious disease surveillance strategies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sero-Epidemiology of Natural Infections and Vaccination)
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13 pages, 1611 KiB  
Review
Phage ImmunoPrecipitation Sequencing (PhIP-Seq): The Promise of High Throughput Serology
by Charles Kevin Tiu, Feng Zhu, Lin-Fa Wang and Ruklanthi de Alwis
Pathogens 2022, 11(5), 568; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/pathogens11050568 - 11 May 2022
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 4834
Abstract
Phage ImmunoPrecipitation Sequencing (PhIP-Seq) is a high throughput serological technology that is revolutionizing the manner in which we track antibody profiles. In this review, we mainly focus on its application to viral infectious diseases. Through the pull-down of patient antibodies using peptide-tile-expressing T7 [...] Read more.
Phage ImmunoPrecipitation Sequencing (PhIP-Seq) is a high throughput serological technology that is revolutionizing the manner in which we track antibody profiles. In this review, we mainly focus on its application to viral infectious diseases. Through the pull-down of patient antibodies using peptide-tile-expressing T7 bacteriophages and detection using next-generation sequencing (NGS), PhIP-Seq allows the determination of antibody repertoires against peptide targets from hundreds of proteins and pathogens. It differs from conventional serological techniques in that PhIP-Seq does not require protein expression and purification. It also allows for the testing of many samples against the whole virome. PhIP-Seq has been successfully applied in many infectious disease investigations concerning seroprevalence, risk factors, time trends, etiology of disease, vaccinology, and emerging pathogens. Despite the inherent limitations of this technology, we foresee the future expansion of PhIP-Seq in both investigative studies and tracking of current, emerging, and novel viruses. Following the review of PhIP-Seq technology, its limitations, and applications, we recommend that PhIP-Seq be integrated into national surveillance programs and be used in conjunction with molecular techniques to support both One Health and pandemic preparedness efforts. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sero-Epidemiology of Natural Infections and Vaccination)
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