Browsing by Author "Lukindo, Tedson"

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    Antiviral Innate Immune Activation in HIV-Infected Adults Negatively Affects H1/IC31-Induced Vaccine-Specific Memory CD4 T Cells
    (Clinical and vaccine immunology, 2015) Lenz, Nicole; Kagina, Benjamin M.; Lukindo, Tedson; Mpina, Maxmillian; Daubenberger, Claudia A.
    Tuberculosis (TB) remains a global health problem, with vaccination being a necessary strategy for disease containment and elimination. A TB vaccine should be safe and immunogenic as well as efficacious in all affected populations, including HIV-infected individuals. We investigated the induction and maintenance of vaccine-induced memory CD4+ T cells following vaccination with the subunit vaccine H1/IC31. H1/IC31 was inoculated twice on study days 0 and 56 among HIV-infected adults with CD4+ lymphocyte counts of >350 cells/mm3. Whole venous blood stimulation was conducted with the H1 protein, and memory CD4+ T cells were analyzed using intracellular cytokine staining and polychromatic flow cytometry. We identified high responders, intermediate responders, and nonresponders based on detection of interleukin-2 (IL-2), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), and gamma interferon (IFN-γ) expressing central (TCM) and effector memory CD4+ T cells (TEM) 182 days after the first immunization. Amplicon-based transcript quantification using next-generation sequencing was performed to identify differentially expressed genes that correlated with vaccine-induced immune responses. Genes implicated in resolution of inflammation discriminated the responders from the nonresponders 3 days after the first inoculation. The volunteers with higher expression levels of genes involved in antiviral innate immunity at baseline showed impaired H1-specific TCM and TEM maintenance 6 months after vaccination. Our study showed that in HIV-infected volunteers, expression levels of genes involved in the antiviral innate immune response affected long-term maintenance of H1/IC31 vaccine-induced cellular immunity.
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    Blood or Urine IP-10 Cannot Discriminate between Active Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases Different from Tuberculosis in Children
    (BioMed research international, 2015) Petrone, Linda; Cannas, Angela; Aloi, Francesco; Nsubuga, Martin; Sserumkuma, Joseph; Nazziwa, Ritah Angella; Jugheli, Levan; Lukindo, Tedson; Girardi, Enrico; Reither, Klaus; Goletti, Delia
    Interferon-𝛾 inducible protein 10 (IP-10), either in blood or in urine, has been proposed as a tuberculosis (TB) biomarker for adults. This study aims to evaluate the potential of IP-10 diagnostics in children from Uganda, a high TB-endemic country. Methods. IP-10 was measured in the blood and urine concomitantly taken from children who were prospectively enrolled with suspected active TB, with or without HIV infection. Clinical/microbiological parameters and commercially available TB-immune assays (tuberculin skin test (TST) and QuantiFERON TB-Gold In-Tube (QFT-IT)) were concomitantly evaluated. Results. One hundred twenty-eight childrenwere prospectively enrolled.The analysiswas performed on 111 children: 80 (72%) of themwere HIVuninfected and 31 (27.9%) were HIV-infected. Thirty-three healthy adult donors (HAD) were included as controls. The data showed that IP-10 is detectable in the urine and blood of children with active TB, independent of HIV status and age. However, although IP-10 levels were higher in active TB children compared to HAD, the accuracy of identifying “active TB” was low and similar to the TST and QFT-IT. Conclusion. IP-10 levels are higher in children with respiratory illness compared to controls, independent of “TB status” suggesting that the evaluation of this parameter can be used as an inflammatory marker more than a TB test.