Publications by authors named "Rivka de Jongh"
Article Synopsis
- Methotrexate (MTX) is a common medicine for rheumatoid arthritis, but it may affect how well people’s immune systems respond to vaccines and infections.
- In a study, researchers looked at how MTX treatment affected immune responses in patients who received a COVID-19 vaccine compared to healthy people and others not on MTX.
- They found that while many immune cells were similar between patients and controls, those on MTX had fewer activated CD4 T cells, leading to slower antibody responses after vaccination.
Unlabelled: Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is a polymicrobial infection of the female reproductive tract. BV is characterized by replacement of health-associated species by diverse anerobic bacteria, including the well-known and are anerobes that are found in a significant number of BV patients, but their contributions to the disease process remain to be determined. Defining characteristics of anerobic overgrowth in BV are adherence to the mucosal surface and the increased activity of mucin-degrading enzymes such as sialidases in vaginal secretions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFT cell activation markers CD38 and HLA-DR indicative of non-seroconversion in anti-CD20-treated patients with multiple sclerosis following SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination.
J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry
August 2024
Article Synopsis
- mRNA vaccines effectively protect against SARS-CoV-2 in healthy individuals, but their effectiveness in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients treated with ocrelizumab (OCR) is unclear.
- A study found that 63% of OCR-treated MS patients did not produce detectable antibodies after vaccination, and they showed lower antibody responses compared to healthy subjects.
- The research suggests that scheduling vaccinations carefully for OCR-treated patients can improve their immune responses, highlighting potential markers (CD38 and HLA-DR) for assessing vaccine efficacy in these patients.
Objectives: High-magnitude CD8 T cell responses are associated with mild COVID-19 disease; however, the underlying characteristics that define CD8 T cell-mediated protection are not well understood. The antigenic breadth and the immunodominance hierarchies of epitope-specific CD8 T cells remain largely unexplored and are essential for the development of next-generation broad-protective vaccines. This study identified a broad spectrum of conserved SARS-CoV-2 CD8 T cell epitopes and defined their respective immunodominance and phenotypic profiles following SARS-CoV-2 infection.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Patients affected by different types of autoimmune diseases, including common conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA), are often treated with immunosuppressants to suppress disease activity. It is not fully understood how the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)-specific humoral and cellular immunity induced by infection and/or upon vaccination is affected by immunosuppressants.
Methods: The dynamics of cellular immune reactivation upon vaccination of SARS-CoV-2 experienced MS patients treated with the humanized anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody ocrelizumab (OCR) and RA patients treated with methotrexate (MTX) monotherapy were analyzed at great depth via high-dimensional flow cytometry of whole blood samples upon vaccination with the SARS-CoV-2 mRNA-1273 (Moderna) vaccine.