Measurement of maternal Pertussis IgA antibodies in breast milk after Pertussis vaccination during pregnancy

Breastfeeding protects young infants through disease specific immune globulin A (IgA). Young infants are susceptible to pertussis and its complications. There is a gap of susceptibility between the loss of maternal protection and vaccination. Pertussis vaccination during pregnancy is currently studied as a possible strategy to close the susceptibility gap. The research question of this project is: does pertussis vaccination during pregnancy influence the pertussis specific IgA amount in breastfeeding?An ELISA test is available for IgA testing in serum. The first aim is to validate this test for use in breastfeeding samples, in collaboration with Prof De Meester, dept Farmaceutical Sciences, UA. In a second phase the influence of different manipulations of the samples is analysed. Finally the difference in total and pertussis specific IgA amount between 40 samples taken from vaccinated women compared to 40 samples from non-vaccinated women, is investigated. This pilot will be instrumental for a larger study on breastmilk samples at several time points during the first 6 months of life and will offer the opportunity to develop a new post-doctoral research line on the role of breast milk in infectious disease prevention which will increase the chances for obtaining a post-doc FWO mandate in 2013.

Keywords:VACCINE-PREVENTABLE DISEASES, LACTATION, PREGNANCY, PERTUSSIS ANTIBODIES

Disciplines:Microbiology, Systems biology, Immunology, Laboratory medicine