Transcriptional responses in muscle of pregnant mouse upon immunization

Vaccination in pregnancy is an effective tool to protect both the mother and infant. Vaccines against tetanus, pertussis and influenza are recommended for use in pregnancy and new vaccines with specific indications for pregnancy are in the clinical trials pipeline. However our understanding of the immune response to vaccination in pregnancy is incomplete. We compared the effect of pregnancy on early (24 hours) transcriptional responses to vaccination. Pregnant mice and women were immunised with Boostrix-IPV, a vaccine containing pertussis antigens. Twenty mice (10 pregnant and 10 controls) were immunised intramuscularly with Boostrix-IPV® (produced by GlaxoSmithKline containing diphtheria toxoid, tetanus toxoid, inactivated polio virus and three Bordetella pertussis antigens) or saline as an injection control. Muscle samples were collected 24 hours after immunisation and the extracted RNA was analysed by murine microarray analysis. John S. Tregoning, Department of Infectious Disease, St Mary’s Campus, Imperial College London, W2 1PG. January Weiner 3rd, Core Unit Bioinformatics, Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany