Title:Vaccinomics: Paving the Way for Personalized Immunization
Volume: 30
Issue: 13
Author(s): Laith Naser Al-Eitan*, Moh’d. Fahmi Munib ElMotasem, Iliya Yacoub Khair and Saif Zuhair Alahmad
Affiliation:
- Department of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid 22110, Jordan
Keywords:
Immunization, polymorphism, vaccine, vaccinomics, SNP, HLA.
Abstract: Vaccines are one of the most important medical advancements in human history. They have been
successfully used to control and limit the spread of many of the lethal diseases that have plagued us, such as
smallpox and polio. Previous vaccine design methodologies were based on the model of "isolate-inactivateinject",
which amounts to giving the same vaccine dose to everyone susceptible to infection. In recent years,
the importance of how the host genetic background alters vaccine response necessitated the introduction of
vaccinomics, which is aimed at studying the variability of vaccine efficacy by associating genetic variability
and immune response to vaccination. Despite the rapid developments in variant screening, data obtained from
association studies is often inconclusive and cannot be used to guide the new generation of vaccines. This review
aims to compile the polymorphisms in HLA and immune system genes and examine the link with their
immune response to vaccination. The compiled data can be used to guide the development of new strategies
for vaccination for vulnerable groups. Overall, the highly polymorphic HLA locus had the highest correlation
with vaccine response variability for most of the studied vaccines, and it was linked to variation in multiple
stages of the immune response to the vaccines for both humoral and cellular immunity. Designing new vaccine
technologies and immunization regiments to accommodate for this variability is an important step for
reaching a vaccinomics-based approach to vaccination.
