Development of methods to measure humoral immune responses against selected antigens in the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) and the effect of pyridostigmine bromide administration.

This methodological study was carried out in preparation for a major long term study, also reported in this volume, which was designed to investigate whether the combination of vaccines and pyridostigmine bromide (PB) could have been responsible for adverse signs and symptoms reported by a number of veterans of the 1990/1991 Gulf conflict. In this context, the marmoset has been used to model aspects of the human immune system. The purposes of this methodological study were to select appropriate immunochemical reagents to measure humoral responses induced in marmosets in response to selected health and hygiene and biological warfare vaccines and to initially assess the effects of PB on the responses recorded. Vaccines were administered at 1/5th of a human dose, and also investigated in combination with the nerve agent pretreatment compound PB. PB dosing was selected to induce an inhibition of erythrocyte acetylcholinesterase by 30%. In order to assess the functionality of the immune system, antibody responses to a neo-antigen (keyhole limpet haemocyanin--KLH), administered some 2 months following the completion of the vaccination schedule, were measured. The present study identified appropriate isotyping reporter reagents which cross-reacted with equivalent marmoset immunoglobulins. Robust antibody responses were identified against anthrax protective antigen (PA), whole cell pertussis vaccine and KLH, while weaker responses were measured against cholera and typhoid vaccines. The killed whole cell plague vaccine induced a response which was at the limit of detection of the assay. Coadministered PB had no discernable effect on immunological responses in this study.