CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

To narrow some gaps in our understanding of maternal pertussis immunizaIon we previously used a micemodel with an immunizaIon protocol consisIng in 3 doses of commercial acellular pertussis vaccine (aP),applying the last dose during the pregnancy. Since in developing countries like ArgenIna, whole-cellpertussis (wP) vaccines are sIll in use in primary series of vaccinaIon, in this work we accordinglyvaccinated female mice with 2 doses of wP vaccine before pregnancy, and with aP during pregnancy. Then,we measured offspring protecIon against B. pertussis challenge and specific-anIbody levels with orwithout revaccinaIon. Non-immunized mice were used as negaIve control of protecIon.Maternal immunizaIon protected the offspring against pertussis, while immune protecIon transferred tothe offspring lasted for several weeks, as evidenced by a 4-log reducIon (p0.05) in the colony-formingunits recovered from 4-week-old offspring lungs . Moreover, maternal-vaccinaIon-acquired immunityfrom the first pregnancy sIll conferred protecIon to offspring up to the fourth pregnancy. As wepreviously observed with schedules consisIng in only aP immunizaIon, the protecIon transferred was notlost a$er the vaccinaIon of infant mice with the same or other vaccine preparaIons, and conversely, theimmunity transferred from mothers did not interfere with the protecIon conferred by infant vaccinaIonwith the same or different vaccines. These results indicated that schedules consisIng in wP immunizaIonbefore pregnancy with a booster dose of aP during pregnancy conferred protecIve immunity to offspringwithout compromising the protecIon boostered by subsequent infant vaccinaIon. These results?thoughadmieedly not necessarily immediately extrapolable to humans?nevertheless enabled us to testhypotheses under controlled condiIons through detailed sampling and data collecIon.