Continuous immunotypes describe human immune variation and predict diverse responses.

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
Authors
Keywords
Abstract

The immune system consists of many specialized cell populations that communicate with each other to achieve systemic immune responses. Our analyses of various measured immune cell population frequencies in healthy humans and their responses to diverse stimuli show that human immune variation is continuous in nature, rather than characterized by discrete groups of similar individuals. We show that the same three key combinations of immune cell population frequencies can define an individual's immunotype and predict a diverse set of functional responses to cytokine stimulation. We find that, even though interindividual variations in specific cell population frequencies can be large, unrelated individuals of younger age have more homogeneous immunotypes than older individuals. Across age groups, cytomegalovirus seropositive individuals displayed immunotypes characteristic of older individuals. The conceptual framework for defining immunotypes suggested by our results could guide the development of better therapies that appropriately modulate collective immunotypes, rather than individual immune components.

Year of Publication
2017
Journal
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
Volume
114
Issue
30
Pages
E6097-E6106
Date Published
2017 07 25
ISSN
1091-6490
DOI
10.1073/pnas.1705065114
PubMed ID
28696306
PubMed Central ID
PMC5544312
Links
Grant list
R01 HL120724 / HL / NHLBI NIH HHS / United States
U19 AI057229 / AI / NIAID NIH HHS / United States
HHMI / Howard Hughes Medical Institute / United States