People's immune response to an influenza vaccine can be predicted after vaccination from gene-expression signatures.

Bali Pulendran at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and his colleagues measured immune responses and gene-expression changes in the white blood cells of 56 volunteers who received the inactivated vaccine against seasonal flu. Expression levels of 42 sets of 3 or 4 genes were used to predict flu-specific antibody response to the inactivated vaccine. For example, levels of the gene CaMKIV were inversely correlated with the antibody responses.

Mice lacking the CaMKIV protein produced more flu antibodies after vaccination than normal mice, confirming the protein's role in the immune response to vaccines.

Nature Immunol. doi:10.1038/ni.2067 (2011)