Monday 2 May 2016

immunology - Why does the protection afforded by some vaccines last longer than for others?



After reading an answer to the question of How Do White Blood Cells Learn? Or Do They?, I came to wonder something. Specifically,



The effect of this is that every new B and T cell that your bone marrow makes will recognize a unique, random protein sequence, and you will have billions of these cells floating around in your blood circulation at any given time. These cells however will only float around in circulation for a short period of time before dying and being replaced by other cells with new random sequence receptors.



Assumption: What I gather from this (and the remainder of the answer) is that basically, a vaccine "teaches" the existing white blood cells in your body; eventually, these cells will be purged, so you will no longer be immune.


However, many vaccines seem to only be once-in-a-lifetime, or at least require a vaccine only once per decade (or less).


Some examples would be the Varicella vaccine, which can last up to 20 years, the Tetanus vaccine, which recommends a booster every 10 years, and the HPV vaccine, which lasts 5-6 years. Durations also vary with Hepatitis, Influenza, Polio, and numerous other common vaccines.


I would assume that, regardless of what a cell has "learned," it is purged with the same likelihood as any other cell; yet, it seems that some "learned" defenses can be retained longer than others. In essence, my question is: Why do some vaccines take longer to "wear off" than others?


(Note: This question is not a duplicate of Why do I need a flu shot every year, while many other vaccinations last years or even a lifetime?; I understand that some pathogens can mutate, so immune cells are of no use against mutated strains since they were not vaccinated against the mutation.)




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