Immunology

Biography

Biography: Christian Pasquali

Abstract

Secondary bacterial infections following influenza infection are a pressing problem facing respiratory medicine. Although antibiotic treatment has been highly successful over recent decades, fatalities due to secondary bacterial infections remain one of the leading causes of death associated with influenza.We have assessed whether administration of a bacter-ial extract alone is sufficient to potentiate immune responses and protect against primary infection with influenza, and secondary infections with either Streptococcus pneumoniae or Klebsiella pneumoniae in mice.We show that oral administration with the bacterial extract, OM-85 (Broncho Vaxom), leads to a maturation of dendritic cells and B-cells characterized by increases in MHC II, CD86, and CD40, and a reduction in ICOSL. Improved immune responsiveness against influenza virus reduced the threshold of susceptibility to secondary bacterial infec-tions, and thus protected the mice.The protectionwas associated with enhanced polyclonal B-cell activation and release of antibodies thatwere effective at neutralizing the virus. Taken together, these data show that oral administration of bacterial extracts provides sufficient mucosal immune stimulation. Further to these findings and to potentiate the various mechanistic means by which OM-85 can modulate the host immune response, a general overview on other recent findings including other therapeutic indication such as asthma will be discussed.