{"id":32867,"date":"2023-01-31T06:40:25","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T01:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=32867"},"modified":"2025-04-19T16:46:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T11:16:11","slug":"what-is-immune-imprinting-and-how-does-it-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/what-is-immune-imprinting-and-how-does-it-work\/","title":{"rendered":"What is immune imprinting and how does it work?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is Immune Imprinting?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>How does Immune Imprinting Works?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What are the Findings of the Recent Study?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>How to Circumvent Immune Imprinting?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>\u00a0Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Variant-specific or bivalent boosters have been made available in nations including the UK and the US (since last September) <strong>in the hope that they may offer superior protection against coronavirus infection<\/strong> compared to the initial vaccination.<\/li>\n<li>However, numerous studies have revealed that<strong> immune imprinting,<\/strong> a mechanism in human bodies, may be rendering these new boosters much less effective than anticipated.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>\n<strong>What is Immune Imprinting?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Immune imprinting is <strong>a tendency of the body to repeat its immune response<\/strong> based on the first variant it encountered (through infection or vaccination) when it comes across a newer or slightly different variant of the same pathogen.<\/li>\n<li>The phenomenon was first observed in <strong>1947 <\/strong>(then called the &#8220;<strong>original antigenic sin<\/strong>&#8220;), when scientists noted that people who previously had flu, and were then vaccinated against the current circulating strain, produced antibodies against the first strain they had encountered.<\/li>\n<li>Over the years, scientists have realised that <strong>imprinting acts as a database for the immune system<\/strong>, helping it put up a better response to repeat infections.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>\n<strong>How does Immune Imprinting Works?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>After the human body is exposed to a virus for the <strong>first time<\/strong>, it <strong>produces memory B cells<\/strong> that circulate in the bloodstream and quickly produce antibodies whenever the same strain of the virus infects again.<\/li>\n<li>When a similar (not identical) variant of the virus is encountered by the body, <strong>the immune system, rather than generating new B cells, activates memory B cells.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>This, in turn, <strong>produces antibodies <\/strong>that bind to features found in both the old and new strains, known as cross-reactive antibodies.<\/li>\n<li>Although these cross-reactive antibodies do offer some protection against the new strain, <strong>they aren\u2019t as effective as the ones produced by the B cells<\/strong> when the body first came across the original virus.\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>\n<strong>What are the Findings of the Recent Study?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>To carry out the experiment, some participants in the research were given a booster (<strong>fourth<\/strong> shot) of the original vaccine while others received a booster of the<strong> new bivalent vaccine.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The bivalent <\/strong>COVID-19 vaccines include &#8211;\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>A component of the original virus strain to provide broad protection against COVID-19 and\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>A component of the omicron variant to provide better protection against COVID-19 caused by the omicron variant.<\/li>\n<li>It was found that across all coronavirus strains tested, <strong>bivalent boosters did not produce a noticeably greater antibody response capable of neutralising the virus<\/strong> than did boosting with the initial monovalent (mRNA) vaccinations.<\/li>\n<li>The study suggested <strong>immune imprinting might be posing a hurdle<\/strong> in the success of the bivalent or variant-specific vaccines. However, that doesn\u2019t mean people shouldn\u2019t get the bivalent booster.<\/li>\n<li>But now there is a need to come up with a vaccine that can overcome imprinting and stop the transmission of the virus.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b<br \/>\n<strong>How to Circumvent Immune Imprinting?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Several ongoing studies are now looking for a solution to imprinting.<\/li>\n<li>Some scientists have suggested that <strong>nasal vaccines<\/strong> may be more effective than injection-based ones at preventing infections.<\/li>\n<li>Even if the mucous membranes have some remnants of previous exposure, they think they would provide stronger protection.<\/li>\n<li>Additionally, scientists are examining if <strong>giving annual intervals between coronavirus vaccinations<\/strong> could lessen the issue of imprinting.<\/li>\n<li>The development of <strong>pan-sarbecovirus vaccines<\/strong>, which will provide protection against all COVID-causing variations, is another area of intense research. However, <strong>it would take time for those initiatives to mature.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What is &#8220;original antigenic sin&#8221; and what is it commonly known as?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>It is known as Immune imprinting, which is a tendency of the body to repeat its immune response based on the first variant it encountered (through infection or vaccination) when it comes across a newer or slightly different variant of the same pathogen. The phenomenon was first observed in 1947 and then called the &#8220;original antigenic sin&#8221;.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) What is the role of B cells?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>B lymphocytes, also called B cells, create a type of protein called an antibody. These antibodies bind to pathogens or to foreign substances, such as toxins, to neutralize them. For example, an antibody can bind to a virus, which prevents it from entering a normal cell and causing infection. B cells can also recruit other cells to help destroy an infected cell.<\/p>\n<p>\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-health\/immune-imprinting-boosters-effective-explained-8397721\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>What is immune imprinting and how does it work?<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>VIDEO:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ENZie33VwKo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ENZie33VwKo<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Immune imprinting is a tendency of body to repeat its immune response based on the first variant it encountered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":32869,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-32867","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}