Peer-reviewedCC BY-NC-ND 4.0Cell Reports Medicine
Functional O-specific polysaccharide-specific antibody responses in young children following Shigella infection in Bangladesh
10 affiliations
- 1Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
- 2The Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research, The George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
- 3Division of Infectious Diseases, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
- 4Department of Pediatrics, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
- 5Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
- 6International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research Bangladesh (icddr,b), Dhaka, Bangladesh
- 7Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- 8LBC, National Institutes of Health, NIDDK, Bethesda, MD, USA
- 9Department of International Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
- 10Latham BioPharm Group, Cambridge, MA, USA
Abstract
Shigellosis is the second leading cause of diarrheal death in children under 5 years globally, yet no licensed vaccine exists, partly due to poor understanding of protective immunity in young children, especially in endemic settings. Here, we applied a functional antibody-profiling approach to define Shigella-specific antibody responses in young children versus older individuals with culture-confirmed shigellosis in Bangladesh. We found that higher baseline O-specific polysaccharide (OSP)-specific and protein-specific IgG and FcγR binding levels correlated with less severe disease regardless of age. We also found that over time, individuals under 5 years of age developed a less functional and durable response against OSP than older individuals. We demonstrate that OSP-specific IgG increased uptake of live Shigella by monocytes and macrophages in an Fc-dependent mechanism. Our findings suggest that young children develop limited OSP-specific functional antibody responses that fail to maximally involve innate immune cells. Innate cell clearance may be important in protecting against Shigella.
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BibTeX
@article{bernshtein2026functional,
title = {{Functional O-specific polysaccharide-specific antibody responses in young children following Shigella infection in Bangladesh}},
author = {Biana Bernshtein and Julia A. Zhiteneva and Jeshina Janardhanan and Chanchal Wagh and Meagan Kelly and Smriti Verma and Christina S. Faherty and Angel Nikolov and Wonyeong Jung and Salima Raiyan Basher and Mohammad Ashraful Amin and Shakil Mahamud and Nazmul Hasan Rajib and Fahima Chowdhury and Ashraful Islam Khan and Richelle C. Charles and Peng Xu and Pavol Kováč and Subhra Chakraborty and Robert W. Kaminski and Galit Alter and Taufiqur R. Bhuiyan and Firdausi Qadri and Edward T. Ryan},
journal = {Cell Reports Medicine},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1016/j.xcrm.2026.103076},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2026.103076},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Functional O-specific polysaccharide-specific antibody responses in young children following Shigella infection in Bangladesh
AU - Biana Bernshtein
AU - Julia A. Zhiteneva
AU - Jeshina Janardhanan
AU - Chanchal Wagh
AU - Meagan Kelly
AU - Smriti Verma
AU - Christina S. Faherty
AU - Angel Nikolov
AU - Wonyeong Jung
AU - Salima Raiyan Basher
AU - Mohammad Ashraful Amin
AU - Shakil Mahamud
AU - Nazmul Hasan Rajib
AU - Fahima Chowdhury
AU - Ashraful Islam Khan
AU - Richelle C. Charles
AU - Peng Xu
AU - Pavol Kováč
AU - Subhra Chakraborty
AU - Robert W. Kaminski
AU - Galit Alter
AU - Taufiqur R. Bhuiyan
AU - Firdausi Qadri
AU - Edward T. Ryan
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/24
JO - Cell Reports Medicine
DO - 10.1016/j.xcrm.2026.103076
UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2026.103076
AB - Shigellosis is the second leading cause of diarrheal death in children under 5 years globally, yet no licensed vaccine exists, partly due to poor understanding of protective immunity in young children, especially in endemic settings. Here, we applied a functional antibody-profiling approach to define Shigella-specific antibody responses in young children versus older individuals with culture-confirmed shigellosis in Bangladesh. We found that higher baseline O-specific polysaccharide (OSP)-specific and protein-specific IgG and FcγR binding levels correlated with less severe disease regardless of age. We also found that over time, individuals under 5 years of age developed a less functional and durable response against OSP than older individuals. We demonstrate that OSP-specific IgG increased uptake of live Shigella by monocytes and macrophages in an Fc-dependent mechanism. Our findings suggest that young children develop limited OSP-specific functional antibody responses that fail to maximally involve innate immune cells. Innate cell clearance may be important in protecting against Shigella.
SN - 2666-3791
ER -