Anti-inflammatory treatment could improve vaccines for elderly

Tuesday January 23rd, 2018

An anti-inflammatory treatment could make vaccines more effective for elderly people, a new study has found.

Researchers at University College London, UK, discovered that an excessive inflammation reaction in older people can obstruct the immune system.

The study, published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, involved a research team injecting the pathogen varicella zoster virus (VZV), which causes chicken pox, into the skin of 175 participants, 78 of whom were 65 years old and over and the remaining 97 were under 40.

All the participants had previously had chicken pox, which meant they should be immune from developing it again.

However, the researchers found that the older subjects had weaker immune responses because there was less T cell activation, and less reddening and swelling of the skin.

When the team injected a benign saline solution into the other arm of each participant, as a control, they found that some of the older participants suffered inflammation.

The participants with the strongest inflammation responses to the saline solution had the weakest immune responses to the VZV, which suggested that the excessive inflammation was inhibiting VZV-specific immunity, say the researchers.

Senior author, Professor Arne Akbar, of UCL Infection & Immunity, said: “We know that the immune system declines with age, and people can be affected by pathogens they were once immune to.

“We found that when it comes to cutaneous immunity – specific to skin – the immune system was being obstructed by skin cells that were too prone to producing inflammation responses. We’ve now identified a way to block that inflammation in the short term.

“Normally inflammation is a healthy part of the body’s immune response, so we were surprised to find that in this case, too much inflammation was getting in the way of the rest of the body’s defences.”

The researchers analysed skin biopsies after they had injected the study participants and found that the excessive inflammation was associated with activation of the p38 MAP kinase pathway.

In a follow-up test of 18 of the over-65 participants, all of whom took Losmapimod, which inhibits the enzyme to reduce acute inflammation responses, the researchers detected improved immune responses to the VZV antigen.

The researchers are now planning to test the effectiveness of a flu vaccine combined with the brief use of Losmapimod for the elderly.

Milica Vukmanovic-Stejic et al. Enhancement of cutaneous immunity during ageing by blocking p38 MAPkinase induced inflammation The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology 22 January 2018; doi:10.1016/j.jaci.2017.10.032

Tags: Elderly Health | Flu & Viruses | UK News

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