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8th Edition of World Congress on Infectious Diseases

June 09-11, 2025 | Rome, Italy

June 09 -11, 2025 | Rome, Italy
Infection 2024

Dynamics of maternal dengue virus antibodies in Indian infants

Speaker at Infectious Diseases Conferences - Shweta Chelluboina
Bharati Vidyapeeth (Deemed to be University), India
Title : Dynamics of maternal dengue virus antibodies in Indian infants

Abstract:

Dengue is a mosquito-borne viral disease endemic in many countries particularly in the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world. It is caused by one of the four serotypes of dengue virus (DENV). As the four serotypes are co-circulating, multiple encounters with heterologous dengue infection are highly prevalent. The enhanced risk of disease severity associated with secondary infection is mediated by one of the mechanisms known as Antibody-Dependent Enhancement (ADE) in dengue. The pathogenesis of dengue infection is determined by the interplay of neutralizing and infection-enhancing antibodies, particularly relevant in infants and young children. Infants born to dengue-immune mothers acquire maternal antibodies to dengue. Maternally acquired DENV-specific antibodies in infants, though initially protective, decline during the first year of life making them susceptible to primary dengue infections. Because of the introduction of the dengue vaccine in the near future in endemic countries like India, there is an urgent need to generate data on the kinetics of maternal antibodies that may offer a better understanding of the optimal age for dengue vaccination. In this study, we aimed to initially optimize plaque reduction neutralization test and antibody enhancement assay in a 96-well plate for the detection of neutralizing and infection-enhancing antibodies respectively for each of the four dengue virus serotypes. Next, we determined DENV-specific neutralizing and enhancing antibodies in Indian infants at birth, 3, 6 and 9 months of age. All anti-DENV IgG-positive samples showed the presence of neutralizing antibodies against 3 or 4 serotypes at birth. Neutralizing antibody levels decline with the increasing age of infants. Similarly, all anti-DENV IgG-positive samples showed enhancement of infection at a particular dilution against 3 or 4 serotypes at birth. With the increasing age of infants, fold enhancement of infection was highest in 6-month-old infants. In summary, our data suggests that DENV infection–enhancing activity coincided with the decline of neutralizing antibodies. Sub-neutralizing levels of maternally acquired DENV-specific antibodies showed DENV infection–enhancing activity highest at 6 months of age in infants. These maternal antibodies might interfere with the response to dengue vaccines. Therefore, such studies may provide insights into the appropriate age for dengue vaccination in infants born to dengue-immune mothers in endemic countries like India.

Biography:

Shweta Chelluboina studied Clinical Virology at Manipal Institute of Virology, India and obtained her Master’s degree in 2017. There she worked on the project entitled “Persistence of antibody response in Chikungunya.” She then joined the Communicable Diseases department headed by Dr. A.C Mishra and Dr. Vidya Arankalle at the Interactive Research School for Health Affairs, Bharati Vidyapeeth, India. She is in the final year of her Ph.D. working on “Development and comparative assessment of antibody-dependent enhancement assays for dengue viruses” under the guidance of Dr. Shubham Shrivastava. Recently, she was awarded for best poster at VIROCON-2023 and has published two research articles in high impact journals.

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