Content area
Full Text
The concept of vaccinomics
Vaccinology has rapidly progressed from the first empirical smallpox vaccine application in 1796 by Edward Jenner to the 'genomic era' of reverse vaccinology, computational vaccinology and recombinant vaccines (hepatitis B vaccine), immunogenic refinements (pneumococcal and meningococcal conjugate vaccines, virus-like particle vaccines such as the human papillomavirus [HPV] vaccine) and recently the prospect of 'universal vaccines', based on highly conserved peptide or saccharide sequences, against a defined species or group of pathogens [1]. We believe that advanced vaccine development and implementation is not achievable without recognizing the mechanisms underlying the heterogeneity of immune responses to vaccines, as informed by population genetic studies, and have extensively published on the role of immune response gene families on humoral, cellular and even innate responses to vaccines [2-4]. Our previous research has highlighted a large and growing family of immune response genes that are critical to vaccine immune responses, such as classical human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes, cytokine and cytokine receptors, Toll-like receptors and related signaling molecules, viral cell-surface receptor genes, vitamin A and D receptors, antiviral effectors and other genes associated with innate and adaptive immunity, merged into a complex interconnected 'immune-response network' [2,4,5]. The ability to understand and comprehensively elucidate variations in host response to immunization will likely dramatically affect the design of new and more effective vaccines, and the development, further refinement and use of both new and existing vaccines and vaccine adjuvants to address the effect(s) of common and/or rare genotypes on vaccine response phenotype ('personalized vaccinology'). We have previously defined the emerging field of 'vaccinomics' as the application of immunogenetics and immunogenomics to understanding the biologic and immunologic basis of vaccine response [2,3]. The current level of growth of this area of inquiry demands the integration of advanced immunology approaches, systems biology, immune profiling, functional validation studies and sophisticated statistical and bioinformatics analysis methods and modeling algorithms (immunoinformatics) to decipher the complexity of immune responses to vaccines [6]. As a result the continuously evolving field of vaccinomics encompasses the discovery, replication, validation and interpretation of known and/or novel immunogenetic signatures and immune profiles that explain the variance in immune response and/or discriminate high from low responders to vaccines. Our ability to understand variations in immune responses to vaccines is critical...