The TB Vaccine Mysteriously Protects Against Lots of Things. Now We Know Why

Something remarkable happened when babies were given the vaccine for Tuberculosis in Africa.

The vaccine offered broad protection against a variety of unrelated infections, including respiratory infections and serious complications such as sepsis.

The off-target effects of the vaccine have been identified by Australian researchers.

The team gave the vaccine to 63 infants within ten days of their birth, and compared their progress to a control group of 67 infants who didn't get the vaccine.

The researchers looked at circulating white blood cells from both groups.

Monocytes are part of the human body's innate immune system and are not specific to any disease.

The unvaccinated group that lasted on average 14 months after vaccination had epigenetic differences that were different from the vaccine group's.

The epigenetic signature of the vaccine was passed down to the next generation of monocytes for more than a year after immunization.

The mechanism behind the protective effect of the vaccine is said to be this.

The Murdoch Children's Research Institute has shown for the first time how the vaccine can affect the immune system of infants.

The epigenetic changes were explored in detail by the researchers.

They isolated monocytes from healthy adults and exposed them to two types of the vaccine.

There were tags for the DNA sequence and histones around it.

Monocytes use their outside surface to respond to diseases.

When the monocyte cell is exposed to a pathogen, it causes a cascade of events inside the cell, including a change in the expression of the cell's genes.

Novakovic said that prior exposure to the vaccine repackages the monocyte DNA in a way that speeds this whole process up and gets the genes required to respond to threats quickly.

Monocytes are more responsive to all infections if they are put on high alert.

It was thought that the innate immune system couldn't remember previous infections, unlike the adaptive immune system, which uses T cells.

Trained immunity is a non-specific memory that can be produced by the innate immune system.

That's been the breakthrough according to Novakovic.

The innate immune system is hyperresponsive when there is a vaccine. Live vaccines that use a weakened form of the virus have the same effect as live vaccines that use a full form of the virus.

The innate immune system is more responsive when there is stress on the body. It is not a good thing.

There are some real-world implications of the study done by Novakovic and colleagues.

In countries with high infant mortality, it is possible to protect infants against a range of other infections with the use of vaccines.

In an Australian context where babies don't die of infectious diseases, there is more interest in the potential use of the vaccine to prevent allergies in children.

The vaccine is thought to have a positive effect on the developing immune system.

In a study published in Allergy last year, researchers found that the vaccine had a small beneficial effect in preventing the development of eczema in infants.

The study was published in a journal.