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Peripheral rotavirus-specific T-cell responses following monovalent oral rotavirus vaccine in infants
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  • Published: 05 March 2026

Peripheral rotavirus-specific T-cell responses following monovalent oral rotavirus vaccine in infants

  • Alexander R. Nicols1,
  • Yesun Lee1,
  • Zion Congrave-Wilson2,
  • Minjun Kim1,
  • Wesley A. Cheng1,
  • Jaycee Jumarang1,
  • Jocelyn Navarro1,
  • Rafaella Navarro3,4,
  • Yamile Rodriguez-Angeles3,4,
  • David Durand3,4,
  • Zackary W. Taylor5,
  • Ruth G. De León6,
  • Theresa J. Ochoa3,4,
  • Alessandro Sette7,8,
  • Ricardo da Silva Antunes7 &
  • …
  • Pia S. Pannaraj1,9 

npj Vaccines , Article number:  (2026) Cite this article

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Subjects

  • Immunology
  • Microbiology

Abstract

Despite evidence of varying vaccine effectiveness, T cell responses to rotavirus (RV) vaccines remain incompletely studied. To address this research gap, RV-specific T cells in the blood of infants pre- and post-monovalent RV vaccination (RV1) were analyzed for memory recall and functionality using RV-specific peptide pool stimulation. We find that RV vaccine elicits heterogenous responses with respect to cellular and humoral immunity. T cell responses to RV vaccine are detectable in the periphery, though poorly functional. Vaccination induces Th2-biased conventional effector memory and central memory CD4 + T cells, as suggested by chemokine receptor profiles, though the response wanes by 8 months post vaccination. The presence of preexisting immunity results in no significant increase in either RV-specific IgA or T cells after vaccination. Our data provides the first in-depth assessment of RV-specific T cell responses induced by vaccine, demonstrating patterns of negative and positive association with response that may play a role in protection against rotavirus disease.

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Data availability

Source data for all figures, including those in the supplement, are provided with this paper. Full data for rotavirus and CMV responses are available at the Open Science Framework as is the code and data used to generate fold change volcano plots https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/D8SJ2. FCS files used in the analyses have been deposited in the following Zenodo databases, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17363217, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17364328, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17364765.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by a National Institute of Health/National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NIH/NICHD) R01 grant: R01 HD100542. Flow cytometry experiments were carried out at the core facility at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Pediatrics, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Alexander R. Nicols, Yesun Lee, Minjun Kim, Wesley A. Cheng, Jaycee Jumarang, Jocelyn Navarro & Pia S. Pannaraj

  2. David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Zion Congrave-Wilson

  3. Instituto de Medicina Tropical Alexander von Humboldt, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Peru

    Rafaella Navarro, Yamile Rodriguez-Angeles, David Durand & Theresa J. Ochoa

  4. Laboratorios de Investigación y Desarrollo (LID), Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Peru

    Rafaella Navarro, Yamile Rodriguez-Angeles, David Durand & Theresa J. Ochoa

  5. Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Kaiser Permanente, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Zackary W. Taylor

  6. Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health, Gorgas Memorial Institute for Health Studies, Panama City, Panama

    Ruth G. De León

  7. Center for Vaccine Innovation, La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI), La Jolla, CA, USA

    Alessandro Sette & Ricardo da Silva Antunes

  8. Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Alessandro Sette

  9. Division of Infectious Diseases, Rady Children’s Hospital, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Pia S. Pannaraj

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  1. Alexander R. Nicols
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Contributions

Conceptualization: P.S.P. Methodology: A.R.N., Y.L., Z.CW., T.J.O., A.S., R.d.S.A., P.S.P. Formal analysis: A.R.N., Y.L., M.K., P.S.P. Investigation: A.R.N., Y.L., Z.CW., M.K., W.A.C., J.J., J.N., R.A.N.H., Y.R.A., D.D., Z.W.T., R.G.D.L., T.J.O., P.S.P. Resources: R.d.S.A., A.S. Data curation: A.R.N., W.A.C., P.S.P. Writing—original draft and visualization: A.R.N., P.S.P. Writing—review and editing: A.R.N., Z.CW., Y.L., M.K., Z.W.T., R.G.D.L., T.J.O., R.d.S.A., A.S., P.S.P. Supervision and funding acquisition: P.S.P.

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Correspondence to Pia S. Pannaraj.

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Nicols, A.R., Lee, Y., Congrave-Wilson, Z. et al. Peripheral rotavirus-specific T-cell responses following monovalent oral rotavirus vaccine in infants. npj Vaccines (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41541-026-01405-z

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  • Received: 06 October 2025

  • Accepted: 06 February 2026

  • Published: 05 March 2026

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41541-026-01405-z

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