Responsiveness to Influenza Vaccination Correlates with NKG2C-Expression on NK Cells

Peggy Riese; Stephanie Trittel; Rishi D Pathirana; Frank Klawonn; Rebecca J Cox; Carlos A Guzmán

doi:10.3390/vaccines8020281

Responsiveness to Influenza Vaccination Correlates with NKG2C-Expression on NK Cells

Vaccines (Basel). 2020 Jun 5;8(2):281. doi: 10.3390/vaccines8020281.

Authors

Peggy Riese¹, Stephanie Trittel¹, Rishi D Pathirana^{2

3}, Frank Klawonn^{4

5}, Rebecca J Cox^{2

3

6}, Carlos A Guzmán^{1

7}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Vaccinology and Applied Microbiology, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, 38124 Braunschweig, Germany.
² Department of Clinical Science, The Influenza Centre, University of Bergen, 5007 Bergen, Norway.
³ K.G. Jebsen Centre for Influenza Vaccine Research, University of Oslo, 0313 Oslo, Norway.
⁴ Department of Biostatistics, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, 38124 Braunschweig, Germany.
⁵ Department of Computer Science, Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences, 38302 Wolfenbuettel, Germany.
⁶ Department of Research and Development, Haukeland University Hospital, 5021 Bergen, Norway.
⁷ Centre for Individualized Infection Medicine, 30625 Hannover, Germany.

Abstract

Influenza vaccination often results in a large percentage of low responders, especially in high-risk groups. As a first line of defense, natural killer (NK) cells play a crucial role in the fight against infections. However, their implication with regard to vaccine responsiveness is insufficiently assessed. Therefore, this study aimed at the validation of essential NK cell features potentially associated with differential vaccine responsiveness with a special focus on NKG2C- and/or CD57-expressing NK cells considered to harbor memory-like functions. To this end, 16 healthy volunteers were vaccinated with an adjuvanted pandemic influenza vaccine. Vaccine responders and low responders were classified according to their hemagglutination inhibition antibody titers. A majority of responders displayed enhanced frequencies of NKG2C-expressing NK cells 7- or 14-days post-vaccination as compared to low responders, whereas the expression of CD57 was not differentially modulated. The NK cell cytotoxic potential was found to be confined to CD56^dimCD16⁺ NKG2C-expressing NK cells in the responders but not in the low responders, which was further confirmed by stochastic neighbor embedding analysis. The presented study is the first of its kind that ascribes CD56^dimCD16⁺ NKG2C-expressing NK cells a crucial role in biasing adaptive immune responses upon influenza vaccination and suggests NKG2C as a potential biomarker in predicting pandemic influenza vaccine responsiveness.

Keywords: NK cells; NKG2C; influenza; vaccination; vaccine responsiveness.