Defining #influenza-specific B cells in #vaccine #responders, non-responders and influenza breakthrough #infections
Abstract Although seasonal influenza vaccination programs are effective at a population level, our data from inactivated influenza vaccine (IIV) cohorts in years 2015-2022 reveal that 50-60% of individuals do not seroconvert following immunization. The underlying mechanisms of vaccine non-responsiveness are far from understood. In this study, we sought to define key determinants of optimal B cell immune responses elicited by seasonal influenza vaccination, and to explore why some individuals fail to elicit humoral immunity following immunization. Immune responses associated with seroconversion and vaccine failure from individuals immunized with IIVs were compared at cellular and molecular levels using single-cell transcriptomics . We analyzed HA-specific B cell immunity across vaccine-responders, breakthrough infections and patients hospitalized with acute influenza. Droplet-based single-cell RNA sequencing and VDJ-sequencing of influenza-specific B cells from stored PBMCs was pe...