Immunosenescence and Altered Vaccine Efficiency in Older Subjects: A Myth Difficult to Change

Fulop, Tamas; Larbi, Anis; Pawelec, Graham; Cohen, Alan A.; Provost, Guillaume; Khalil, Abedelouahed; Lacombe, Guy; Rodrigues, Serafim; Desroches, Mathieu; Hirokawa, Katsuiku; Franceschi, Claudio; Witkowski, Jacek M.

doi:10.3390/vaccines10040607

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Immunosenescence and Altered Vaccine Efficiency in Older Subjects: A Myth Difficult to Change

by

Tamas Fulop

^1,*,

Anis Larbi

²,

Graham Pawelec

^3,4

,

Alan A. Cohen

⁵,

Guillaume Provost

⁶,

Abedelouahed Khalil

¹

,

Guy Lacombe

¹,

Serafim Rodrigues

^6,7,*,

Mathieu Desroches

^8,9

,

Katsuiku Hirokawa

¹⁰,

Claudio Franceschi

^11,12 and

Jacek M. Witkowski

¹³

¹

Research Center on Aging, Geriatric Division, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC J1H 5N4, Canada

²

Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN), Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR), Immunos Building, Singapore 138648, Singapore

³

Department of Immunology, University of Tübingen, 72072 Tübingen, Germany

⁴

Health Sciences North Research Institute, Sudbury, ON P3E 2H2, Canada

⁵

Groupe de Recherche PRIMUS, Department of Family Medicine, University of Sherbrooke, 3001 12e Ave N, Sherbrooke, QC J1H 5N4, Canada

⁶

Ikerbasque, The Basque Foundation for Science, 48009 Bilbao, Spain

⁷

BCAM—The Basque Center for Applied Mathematics, 48009 Bilbao, Spain

⁸

MathNeuro Team, Inria Sophia Antipolis Méditerranée, CEDEX, 06902 Sophia Antipolis, France

⁹

The Jean Alexandre Dieudonné Laboratory, Université Côte d’Azur, CEDEX 2, 06108 Nice, France

¹⁰

Institute of Health and Life Science, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo 113-8510, Japan

¹¹

IRCCS Institute of Neurological Sciences of Bologna, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, 40126 Bologna, Italy

¹²

Department of Applied Mathematics and Laboratory of Systems Biology of Healthy Aging, Lobachevsky State University, 603000 Nizhny Novgorod, Russia

¹³

Department of Pathophysiology, Medical University of Gdansk, 80-210 Gdansk, Poland

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Vaccines 2022, 10(4), 607; https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10040607

Submission received: 12 February 2022 / Revised: 5 April 2022 / Accepted: 8 April 2022 / Published: 13 April 2022

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Knowledge about Vaccines and Vaccination in Older People)

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Abstract

Organismal ageing is associated with many physiological changes, including differences in the immune system of most animals. These differences are often considered to be a key cause of age-associated diseases as well as decreased vaccine responses in humans. The most often cited vaccine failure is seasonal influenza, but, while it is usually the case that the efficiency of this vaccine is lower in older than younger adults, this is not always true, and the reasons for the differential responses are manifold. Undoubtedly, changes in the innate and adaptive immune response with ageing are associated with failure to respond to the influenza vaccine, but the cause is unclear. Moreover, recent advances in vaccine formulations and adjuvants, as well as in our understanding of immune changes with ageing, have contributed to the development of vaccines, such as those against herpes zoster and SARS-CoV-2, that can protect against serious disease in older adults just as well as in younger people. In the present article, we discuss the reasons why it is a myth that vaccines inevitably protect less well in older individuals, and that vaccines represent one of the most powerful means to protect the health and ensure the quality of life of older adults.

Keywords: immunosenescence; inflammaging; vaccination; influenza vaccine; pneumococcal vaccine; herpes–zoster vaccine; COVID-19 vaccine; immunobiography; trained immunity; adaptive complex systems; mathematical model; tipping point

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MDPI and ACS Style

Fulop, T.; Larbi, A.; Pawelec, G.; Cohen, A.A.; Provost, G.; Khalil, A.; Lacombe, G.; Rodrigues, S.; Desroches, M.; Hirokawa, K.; et al. Immunosenescence and Altered Vaccine Efficiency in Older Subjects: A Myth Difficult to Change. Vaccines 2022, 10, 607. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10040607

AMA Style

Fulop T, Larbi A, Pawelec G, Cohen AA, Provost G, Khalil A, Lacombe G, Rodrigues S, Desroches M, Hirokawa K, et al. Immunosenescence and Altered Vaccine Efficiency in Older Subjects: A Myth Difficult to Change. Vaccines. 2022; 10(4):607. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10040607

Chicago/Turabian Style

Fulop, Tamas, Anis Larbi, Graham Pawelec, Alan A. Cohen, Guillaume Provost, Abedelouahed Khalil, Guy Lacombe, Serafim Rodrigues, Mathieu Desroches, Katsuiku Hirokawa, and et al. 2022. "Immunosenescence and Altered Vaccine Efficiency in Older Subjects: A Myth Difficult to Change" Vaccines 10, no. 4: 607. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10040607

APA Style

Fulop, T., Larbi, A., Pawelec, G., Cohen, A. A., Provost, G., Khalil, A., Lacombe, G., Rodrigues, S., Desroches, M., Hirokawa, K., Franceschi, C., & Witkowski, J. M. (2022). Immunosenescence and Altered Vaccine Efficiency in Older Subjects: A Myth Difficult to Change. Vaccines, 10(4), 607. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10040607

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Immunosenescence and Altered Vaccine Efficiency in Older Subjects: A Myth Difficult to Change

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