Immune predictors of oral poliovirus vaccine immunogenicity among infants in South India

Babji, Sudhir; Manickavasagam, Punithavathy; Chen, Yin-Huai; Jeyavelu, Nithya; Jose, Nisha Vincy; Praharaj, Ira; Syed, Chanduni; Kaliappan, Saravanakumar Puthupalayam; John, Jacob; Giri, Sidhartha; Venugopal, Srinivasan; Kampmann, Beate; Parker, Edward P. K.; Iturriza-Gómara, Miren; Kang, Gagandeep; Grassly, Nicholas C.; Uhlig, Holm H.

Identification of the causes of poor oral vaccine immunogenicity in low-income countries might lead to more effective vaccines. We measured mucosal and systemic immune parameters at the time of vaccination with oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) in 292 Indian infants aged 6–11 months, including plasma cytokines, leukocyte counts, fecal biomarkers of environmental enteropathy and peripheral blood T-cell phenotype, focused on gut-homing regulatory CD4+ populations. We did not find a distinct immune phenotype associated with OPV immunogenicity, although viral pathogens were more prevalent in stool at the time of immunization among infants who failed to seroconvert (63.9% vs. 45.6%, p = 0.002). Using a machine-learning approach, we could predict seroconversion a priori using immune parameters and infection status with a median 58% accuracy (cross-validation IQR: 50–69%) compared with 50% expected by chance. Better identification of immune predictors of OPV immunogenicity is likely to require sampling of mucosal tissue and improved oral poliovirus infection models.