What is Immune Imprinting?
26-08-2023
10:30 AM
1 min read
Overview:
Recent studies came out with the fact that Immune imprinting in the bodies, might be making new boosters dose of COVID-19 far less effective than expected.
Why in news?
- Two papers, published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), pointed out those bivalent boosters — made to counter both the Omicron strains and the original Covid-19 strain — don’t generate significantly greater antibody responses than an additional dose of the original mRNA vaccines.
What is immune imprinting?
- The phenomenon was first observed in 1947 when scientists noted that in flu patients and termed it an ‘original antigenic sin’
- Immune imprinting 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.
- Imprinting acts as a database for the immune system, helping it put up a better response to repeat infections.
- After the body is exposed to a virus for the first time, it produces memory B cells that circulate in the bloodstream and quickly produce antibodies whenever the same strain of the virus infects again.
- The problem occurs when a similar, not identical, variant of the virus is encountered by the body.
- In such cases, the immune system, rather than generating new B cells, activates memory B cells, which produce cross-reactive antibodies that bind to features found in both the old and new strains.
- These cross-reactive antibodies offer some protection but are not as effective as the ones produced by B cells when the body first encountered the original virus.
Q1) What are Lymphocytes?
Lymphocytes are a type of white blood cell. They help your body’s immune system fight cancer and foreign viruses and bacteria. Your lymphocyte count can be taken during a normal blood test at your healthcare provider’s office. Lymphocyte levels vary depending on your age, race, sex, altitude and lifestyle.