UAB research may point a path to more effective influenza vaccines

Seasonal influenza vaccines are typically less than 50 percent effective, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studies. Research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, published this week in Nature Immunology, may point a path to more effective vaccines. Researchers led by Troy Randall, Ph.D., professor in the UAB Department of Medicine’s Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology, studied a type of immune cell in the lung called a resident memory B cell. Up to now, it had not been clear if these cells might be useful to combat influenza infections or even if they existed at all.
Using a mouse model of influenza and experiments that included parabiosis — the linking of the blood circulatory systems between two mice — Randall and colleagues definitively showed that lung-resident memory B cells establish themselves in the lung soon after influenza infection. Those lung-resident memory B cells responded more quickly to produce antibodies against influenza after a second infection, as compared to the response by the circulating memory B cells in lymphoid tissue. The UAB researchers also found that establishment of the lung-resident memory B cells required a local antigen encounter in the lung.