The Role of Systems Vaccinology in Understanding the Immune Defects to Vaccination in Solid Organ Transplant Recipients

Abstract

Solid organ transplant recipients (SOTRs) are at increased risk for many infections, whether viral, bacterial, or fungal, due to immunosuppressive therapy to prevent organ rejection. The same immune defects that render transplanted patients susceptible to infection dampen their immune response to vaccination. Therefore, it is vital to identify immune defects to vaccination in transplant recipients and methods to obviate them. These methods can include alternative vaccine composition, dosage, adjuvants, route of administration, timing, and re-vaccination strategies. Systems biology is a relatively new field of study, which utilizes high throughput means to better understand biological systems and predict outcomes. Systems biology approaches have been used to help obtain a global picture of immune responses to infections and vaccination (i.e. systems vaccinology), but little work has been done to use systems biology to improve vaccine efficacy in immunocompromised patients, particularly SOTRs, thus far. Systems vaccinology approaches may hold key insights to vaccination in this vulnerable population.