HLA supertypes and immune responses to measles-mumps-rubella viral vaccine: findings and implications for vaccine design.

Although the outcome of the immune response to measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination depends on multiple factors, elucidation of specific host genetic markers, such as HLA supertypes based on a shared sequence motif in the peptide-binding pockets of HLA molecules, is essential. We studied the association between measures of humoral and cellular immune responses and HLA supertypes among 346 children previously immunized with two doses of MMR. We found that HLA supertypes, such as A3, B7, B44, B58, B62, and DR may play a role in modulating immune responses to the measles and mumps components of MMR vaccine. This information may be of significant value in the engineering of potential epitope-based vaccines that are recognized by T cells restricted by human HLA supertype alleles.