Cell Host & Microbe
Volume 13, Issue 6, 12 June 2013, Pages 691-700
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Article
Convergent Antibody Signatures in Human Dengue

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chom.2013.05.008Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • White blood cell DNA sequences reveal clonal B cell expansion in acute dengue patients

  • Multiple dengue cases exhibit convergent dengue-specific antibody (CDR3) signatures

  • Convergent CDR3s have diverse underlying nucleotide sequences

  • Dengue-specific CDR3s have unique amino acid physicochemical profiles

Summary

Dengue is the most prevalent mosquito-borne viral disease in humans, and the lack of early prognostics, vaccines, and therapeutics contributes to immense disease burden. To identify patterns that could be used for sequence-based monitoring of the antibody response to dengue, we examined antibody heavy-chain gene rearrangements in longitudinal peripheral blood samples from 60 dengue patients. Comparing signatures between acute dengue, postrecovery, and healthy samples, we found increased expansion of B cell clones in acute dengue patients, with higher overall clonality in secondary infection. Additionally, we observed consistent antibody sequence features in acute dengue in the highly variable major antigen-binding determinant, complementarity-determining region 3 (CDR3), with specific CDR3 sequences highly enriched in acute samples compared to postrecovery, healthy, or non-dengue samples. Dengue thus provides a striking example of a human viral infection where convergent immune signatures can be identified in multiple individuals. Such signatures could facilitate surveillance of immunological memory in communities.

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These authors contributed equally to this work