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Identification of immune correlates of protection after vaccination is an important part of vaccinology for both theoretical and practical reasons. The terminology and definition of correlates have been confusing, because different authors have used variable terms and concepts. Here, we attempt to give precision to the field by defining 3 terms: correlate of protection (CoP), mechanistic correlate of protection (mCoP), and nonmechanistic correlate of protection (nCoP). A CoP is a marker of immune function that statistically correlates with protection after vaccination that may be either an mCoP, which is a mechanistic cause of protection, or an nCoP, which does not cause protection but nevertheless predicts protection through its (partial) correlation with another immune response(s) that mechanistically protects.
Plotkin et al. (Tue,) studied this question.
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