Maternal antibodies have been known to interfere with neonatal immune responses to vaccination for decades. Using a mouse model, we have finally identified the mechanisms underpinning the interference phenomenon for oral rotavirus vaccines.

Chandler TL, Woodyear S, Chen V, Lonergan TM, Baker N, Harcourt K, Clare S, Ahmed F and Caddy S. Mechanisms of maternal antibody interference to rotavirus vaccination. EMBO J 2025, 10.1038/s44318-025-00582-2.

Thank you for Mollin and Langel for their commentary.

Recent work in our lab has used a chimeric human rotavirus to provide a new strategy for studying human-rotavirus-specific immunity. Rotavirus vaccines perform poorly in low-middle income countries, and we propose this small animal platform will be useful for testing the efficacy of new vaccines and antibody-based therapeutics.

Woodyear S, Chandler TL, Kawagishi T, Lonergan T, Patel V, Williams C, Permar SR, Ding S, and Caddy S. Chimeric Viruses Enable Study of Antibody Responses to Human Rotaviruses in Mice. Viruses 2024, 16(7), 1145.

Our work has shown that antibodies can stimulate CD8 T cell activation via the intracellular antibody receptor TRIM21 to enhance MHC class I presentation.

Caddy S, Vaysburd M, Papa G, Wing M, O‘Connell K, Stoycheva D, Foss S, Terje Andersen J, Oxenius A,  and James LC. Viral nucleoprotein antibodies activate TRIM21 and induce T cell immunity. EMBO J 2021 Mar 1;40(5):e106228.

An explainer of this discovery has been published by The Conversation.