Infant Non-Secretor Histoblood Group Antigen Phenotype Reduces Susceptibility to Both Symptomatic and Asymptomatic Rotavirus Infection
Benjamin Lee,
Md Abdul Kader,
Masud Alam,
Dorothy M. Dickson,
Patrick Harvey,
E. Ross Colgate,
Mami Taniuchi,
William A. Petri,
Rashidul Haque,
Beth D. Kirkpatrick
Affiliations
Benjamin Lee
Department of Pediatrics, Vaccine Testing Center and Translational Global Infectious Diseases Research Center, Larner College of Medicine, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405, USA
Md Abdul Kader
International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh
Masud Alam
International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh
Dorothy M. Dickson
Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Vaccine Testing Center and Translational Global Infectious Diseases Research Center, Larner College of Medicine, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405, USA
Patrick Harvey
Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Vaccine Testing Center and Translational Global Infectious Diseases Research Center, Larner College of Medicine, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405, USA
E. Ross Colgate
Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Vaccine Testing Center and Translational Global Infectious Diseases Research Center, Larner College of Medicine, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405, USA
Mami Taniuchi
Division of Infectious Diseases and International Health, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA
William A. Petri
Division of Infectious Diseases and International Health, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA
Rashidul Haque
International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh
Beth D. Kirkpatrick
Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Vaccine Testing Center and Translational Global Infectious Diseases Research Center, Larner College of Medicine, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405, USA
The infant non-secretor histoblood group antigen phenotype is associated with reduced risk of symptomatic rotavirus diarrhea, one of the leading global causes of severe pediatric diarrheal disease and mortality. However, little is known regarding the role of secretor status in asymptomatic rotavirus infections. Therefore, we performed a nested case–control study within a birth cohort study previously conducted in Dhaka, Bangladesh, to determine the association between infant secretor phenotype and the odds of asymptomatic rotavirus infection, in addition to the risk of rotavirus diarrhea, in unvaccinated infants. In the parent cohort, infants were enrolled in the first week of life and followed through the first two years of life with multiple clinic visits and active surveillance for diarrheal illness. Secretor phenotyping was performed on saliva. Eleven surveillance stools collected over the first year of life were tested for rotavirus by real-time RT-PCR, followed by conventional PCR and amplicon sequencing to identify the infecting P-type of positive specimens. Similar to findings for symptomatic diarrhea, infant non-secretors experienced significantly fewer primary episodes of asymptomatic rotavirus infection through the first year of life in a likely rotavirus P-genotype-dependent manner. These data suggest that non-secretors experienced reduced risk from rotavirus due to decreased susceptibility to infection rather than reduced infection severity.
