Estradiol enhances B cell humoral immune responses against genital herpes simplex virus type 2 in mice through an IL-17 dependant pathway
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction: Estradiol has been shown to enhance anti-viral immunity and protect against HSV-2 infection. Previously, we reported that intranasal immunization with attenuated HSV-2 (TK-) in the presence of estradiol (E2) showed enhanced Th17 responses that led to increased anti-viral Th1 immunity in HSV-2 post-challenge. Whether enhanced Th17 cells also lead to improved B cell antibody responses against HSV-2 challenge in immunized mice in the presence of E2 was not examined and is the focus of the current study. Methods: pfu of WT HSV-2 4-6 weeks post-immunization, and vaginal washes were collected daily until euthanized at day 5 post-challenge to determine viral titers and protection. Mononuclear cells isolated from vaginal tract, spleen, nasal associated lymphoid tissue (NALT), cervical lymph nodes (cLN) and iliac lymph nodes (iLN) tissues were analyzed by flow cytometry for plasma and memory B cell phenotypes. Results: E2-treated WT OVX immunized mice after intravaginal HSV-2 challenge showed significantly increased HSV-2-specific IgG2b and IgG2c antibodies in serum and vaginal secretions compared to placebo mice and enhanced B220-CD138+ IgG2c+ plasma cells within the nasal mucosa and vaginal tract 6-weeks after immunization. Furthermore, E2 treatment enhanced the subsets of CD19+ IgD- memory B cells 4-weeks post immunization within the iLN and spleen. Notably, E2-induced increased B cell antibody responses conferred greater protection from HSV-2 challenge compared to placebo mice as evidenced by 2-3 logs decreased viral titers in the vaginal tract and 20% mice with genital pathology compared to 80% in placebo group, indicating better protection in E2-treated mice. Importantly, E2-mediated enhanced plasma and B cell antibody responses observed in WT mice were abrogated in IL-17-/- mice that led to 2-3 logs higher viral titers that were equivalent in WT placebo- and IL-17-/- mice and no difference in protection. Conclusion: This study provides novel evidence that part of the E2-induced enhanced anti-viral response is mediated by increased B cell antibody responses that requires IL-17. Thus, E2 could be exploited in developing an effective mucosal vaccine driving B cells through intranasal immunization to elicit stronger HSV-2-specific antibody responses in the female genital tract.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".