PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Dylan T. Boehm
AU  - Melinda E. Varney
AU  - Ting Y. Wong
AU  - Evan S. Nowak
AU  - Emel Sen-Kilic
AU  - Jesse Hall
AU  - Shelby D. Bradford
AU  - Katherine DeRoos
AU  - Justin Bevere
AU  - Matthew Epperly
AU  - Jennifer A. Maynard
AU  - Erik L. Hewlett
AU  - Mariette Barbier
AU  - F. Heath Damron
TI  - Characterizing the innate and adaptive responses of immunized mice to <em>Bordetella pertussis</em> infection using <em>in vivo</em> imaging and transcriptomic analysis
AID  - 10.1101/674408
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 674408
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/06/18/674408.1.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/06/18/674408.1.full
AB  - Bordetella pertussis (B. pertussis) is the causative agent of pertussis (whooping cough). Since the 1990s, pertussis has re-emerged in the United States despite an estimated 95% vaccine coverage. Our goal was to characterize neutrophil responses and gene expression profiles of murine lungs in the context of vaccination and B. pertussis challenge. We utilized a bioluminescent neutrophil mouse model (NECre luc) to track neutrophil recruitment. NECre luc mice were immunized with whole cell vaccine (WCV), acellular vaccine (ACV), or a truncated adenylate cyclase toxoid (RTX) vaccine. Neutrophil recruitment was measured in live mice across time and corroborated by flow cytometry and other data. WCV immunized mice showed signs of neutrophilia in response to B. pertussis challenge. Mice immunized with either ACV or WCV cleared the challenge infection; however immunization with RTX alone was not protective. RNA sequencing revealed distinctive gene expression profiles for each immunization group. We observed an increase in expression of genes associated with responses to infection, and changes in expression of distinct genes in each vaccine group, providing a complex view of the immune response to B. pertussis infection in mice. This study suggests that combination of immunological analysis with transcriptomic profiling can facilitate discovery of pre-clinical correlates of protection for vaccine development.