Maternal Antibodies, Childhood Infections, and Autoimmune Diseases

With this article by Nobel laureate Rolf Zinkernagel, the Immunology series that began in July 2000 comes to an end. Zinkernagel's thesis concerns the influence of a mother's immunologic memory on the effectiveness of childhood vaccination and the susceptibility of her child to infectious...

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Veröffentlicht in:The New England journal of medicine 2001-11, Vol.345 (18), p.1331-1335
1. Verfasser: Zinkernagel, Rolf M
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:With this article by Nobel laureate Rolf Zinkernagel, the Immunology series that began in July 2000 comes to an end. Zinkernagel's thesis concerns the influence of a mother's immunologic memory on the effectiveness of childhood vaccination and the susceptibility of her child to infectious diseases. He reviews how immunity in the entire community (herd immunity) affects immune protection not only in the mother but also in succeeding generations. Zinkernagel warns that lax vaccination programs and complacency produced by improved living standards will have global effects on susceptibility to infection and autoimmune diseases. Recovery from an infectious disease or an encounter with a nonmicrobial antigen is usually followed by the development of resistance to that disease or a rapid and heightened immune response on reexposure to the antigen. These effects, termed immunologic memory, are explainable by the generation of increased numbers of precursor lymphocytes during the initial encounter and the induction of a special “memory” quality of individual T and B cells. 1 – 4 Alternatively, memory could result from the persistence of low levels of antigen in lymphoid tissues, which keep T cells activated and maintain protective amounts of antibodies. 5 , 6 In this article, . . .
ISSN:0028-4793
1533-4406
DOI:10.1056/NEJMra012493