Medical Bulletin 28/January/2023

Here are the top medical news for the day:

Immune response to COVID-19 strengthens over time: Study

Immunity from COVID-19 appears to gather strength with more time between vaccination and infection, a new laboratory study from researchers at Oregon Health & Science University suggests. The findings carry implications for vaccine recommendations as the pandemic transitions to an endemic state.

Researchers measured the antibody response in blood samples for a group of people who gained so-called “hybrid immunity” through two means: either vaccination followed by a breakthrough infection, or by getting vaccinated after contracting COVID-19. They measured the immune response in blood samples of 96 generally healthy OHSU employees and found that the immune response was uniformly stronger the longer the time period between vaccination and infection. The longest interval measured was 404 days.

Reference:

Fikadu Tafesse et al,An extended interval between vaccination and infection enhances hybrid immunity against SARS-CoV-2 variants,JCI Insight,doi 10.1172/jci.insight.165265

Hope for patients with Methylmalonic aciduria

The University Children’s Hospital Zurich is one of the leading global centers for diagnosing and treating Methylmalonic aciduria (MMA), a metabolic disorder in which affected children and adolescents often use wheelchairs and do not always survive to reach adulthood.

Patient samples from all over the world are sent to Zurich for diagnosis. In a large interdisciplinary project, scientist from various Swiss research institutions studied 210 biopsies in detail. They examined not only all of the genes (DNA) in the patient’s cells but also the RNA transcripts of these genes and many of the proteins.

Reference:

Bernd Wollscheid et al,Integrated multi-omics reveals anaplerotic rewiring in methylmalonyl-CoA mutase deficiency,Nature Metabolism,doi 10.1038/s42255-022-00720-8

Persistent mutations in tumors may predict immunotherapy response: Study

Iinvestigators at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and its Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy have found that a subset of mutations within the overall tumor mutation burden or TMB, termed “persistent mutations,” are less likely to be edited out as cancer evolves, rendering tumors continuously visible to the immune system and predisposing them to respond to immunotherapy.

This persistent mutation load may help clinicians more accurately select patients for clinical trials of novel immunotherapies or predict a patient’s clinical outcome with immune checkpoint blockade - a type of immunotherapy.

Reference:

Valsamo Anagnostou et al,Nature Medicine,doi 10.1038/s41591-022-02163-w