Writing in the journal Nature Immunology, they detail an investigation into one of the key features of adenovirus vaccines – their ability to generate strong and sustained populations of the ‘killer’ T-cell element of the immune system.
In an animal model, they observed that adenoviruses are able to get into long-lived tissue cells, known as fibroblastic reticular cells, which in turned formed small, well organised clusters, acting as ‘training grounds’ for these T-cells, appearing to explain how these vaccines sustain robust immune system responses.