Adaptive Immunity against Streptococcus pyogenes in Adults Involves Increased IFN-γ and IgG3 Responses Compared with Children

Each year, millions of people are infected with Streptococcus pyogenes, leading to an estimated 500,000 annual deaths worldwide. For unknown reasons, school-aged children have substantially higher infection rates than adults. The goal for this study was to provide, to our knowledge, the first detailed characterization of the human adaptive immune response against S. pyogenes in both children and adults. We report that all adults in our study, as...