This Chinese mouse study fed pregnant mice a standard, a zinc-deficient, or a deficient-then-supplemented diet and then vaccinated their pups against hepatitis B. Pups of zinc-deficient mothers had lower antibody responses and weaker T-cell responses. Supplementing zinc in the last week of pregnancy restored maternal serum zinc but did not fully restore offspring immunity.
Key numbers
- Diets: standard 30 mg/kg/d zinc, deficient 8 mg/kg/d, and supplemented 150 mg/kg/d in the last week (as printed) (Methods, p. 2).
- Maternal serum zinc was lowest in the deficient group, 16.09 ± 2.03 (unit printed as mmol/L in the extracted text) (P = 0.041) (Results, p. 3).
- Total anti-HBs IgG was lowest in pups from the deficient group, 16.22 ± 13.62 uranium (U)/mL (Results, p. 4).
- Pup serum zinc at 6 weeks did not differ between groups (Figure 1B).
Methods (brief)
Pups were nursed by foster mothers on normal diets and immunized at weeks 0, 2 and 4. Serum zinc was measured by ICP-MS; antibodies by ELISA; T-cell proliferation and cytokines by CCK-8 assay and flow cytometry.
Evidence fitness
The study supports animal evidence that maternal zinc deficiency during pregnancy can impair the offspring’s vaccine response even when offspring serum zinc later normalizes. It cannot be translated to human dose or vaccine policy.
Limitations
Only three dams per diet. The diet zinc unit (mg/kg/d) is ambiguous. The printed serum zinc unit may be a rendering of micromoles per liter.
Related evidence
Update history
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