Journal of Vaccines & Vaccination

Mucosal and Systemic Immune Responses to SARS-CoV-2 Infection or Vaccination

5^th International conference on Vaccines, Vaccination and Immunization

August 21-22, 2024 | webinar

Jiri Mestecky, MD, PhD.

Department of Microbiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: Journal of Vaccines & Vaccination

Abstract:

The SARS-CoV-2 virus initially infects the upper respiratory tract, including the nasal mucosa and Waldeyer’s ring, where it induces mucosal humoral and cellular immune responses. Humoral responses to the infection are dominated by the development of secretory IgA (S-IgA) antibodies in nasal secretions and saliva. The currently used injectable vaccines induce prominent immune responses in systemic fluids and tissues but not in external secretions of previously uninfected individuals. The observed frequent infection of the upper respiratory tract in systemically vaccinated individuals is due to important differences between the mucosal and systemic compartments of the immune system, with respect to inductive sites, dominant antibody isotypes, and their functions and maturation. However, systemic immunization of individuals who were previously infected mucosally can also induce limited mucosal responses. Thus, the development of vaccines to SARS-CoV-2 applied by mucosal routes that induce immune responses at the site of virus entry as well as in the systemic compartment is the desired goal of several current efforts. In addition to generating both local and systemic protective immunity, such vaccines would also diminish the spread of the virus in the community, something that is not readily achieved by systemic vaccines.

Biography :

Jiri Mestecky (b. 1941), Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Medicine, graduated from the School of Medicine, Charles University in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1964. Postdoctoral studies were then performed at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, Prague in the Department of Immunology headed by Professor J. Sterzl, and at UAB with Professor F.W. Kraus. A sabbatical was spent in 1976 at Rockefeller University, New York, in the laboratory of Professor H.G. Kunkel. Dr. Mestecky has served as a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Immunology, Immunochemistry (Molecular Immunology), Infection and Immunity, Journal of Clinical Immunology, Oral Microbiology and Immunology, and International Archives of Allergy and Immunology. Outside interest include classical music and traveling.