Serum biomarker profile orchestrating the seroconversion status of patients with autoimmune diseases upon planned primary 17DD Yellow fever vaccination

The present study aimed to investigate whether the serum biomarkers of immune response orchestrate the seroconversion status in patients with autoimmune diseases (AID) upon planned primary 17DD-YF vaccination. For this purpose a total of 161 individuals were enrolled in a prospective study, including patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA = 38), Spondyloarthritis (SpA = 51), Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE = 21) and Sjögren’s Syndrome (SS = 30) along with a group of healthy controls (HC = 21). Analysis of plaque reduction neutralization test (PRNT) titers and seropositivity rates along with the 17DD-YF viremia and serum biomarkers were carried out at distinct time points (D0/D3–4/D5–6/D7/D14–28). The results demonstrated an overall lower PRNT titer and seropositivity rate (170 vs. 448; 77 vs. 95%) in AID as compared to HC, especially in SpA and SLE subgroups. No significant differences were observed in the viremia levels amongst groups. In general, a more prominent serum biomarker response was observed in AID as compared to HC, throughout the timeline kinetics. Remarkably, AID/PRNT(−) exhibited higher levels of several biomarkers at baseline as compared to AID/PRNT+. Moreover, while AID/PRNT(+) exhibited earlier increase in serum biomarkers at D3–4/D5–6, the AID/PRNT(−) displayed higher response at later time points (D7/D14–D28). Of note, a synchronic increase of IFN-γ at the peak of viremia (D5–6) was observed in HC and AID/PRNT(+) groups, whereas a later asynchronous IFN-γ response was reported for AID/PRNT(−) at D7. The biomarker profile tends to deflate at post-vaccination timeline, highlighting a putative immunomodulatory effect of live attenuated 17DD-YF vaccine in AID/PRNT(+), but not in AID/PRNT(−). Altogether these data suggested that inflammatory status prior vaccination, low IFN-γ at viremia peak and the occurrence of asynchronous biomarker storm after 17DD-YF vaccination may orchestrate the lack of neutralizing antibody response γ.