An effective HIV vaccine will need to elicit potent humoral and cellular immune responses for true sterilizing immunity. HIV-specific CD4 + T cell responses, particularly proliferative responses, are a potent correlate of control of viremia, but relatively uncommon and of low magnitude in HIV infected individuals. Autologous neutralizing antibodies in HIV infected subjects are typically of low titer, and lack sufficient breadth to neutralize heterologous viruses. Our current HIV vaccine candidates currently under testing in humans are able to elicit CD8+ cellular immune responses, and may well provide partial protection against infection, but are unlikely to generate neutralizing antibodies. This HIVRAD program project will identify viral sequences that elicit broadly neutralizing antibodies in subjects with varying degrees of control of viremia. This particular project (project 2) will take advantage of our access to a large cohort of subjects with early and chronic HIV infection, and which contains several individuals with control of viremia in the absence of anti-retroviral therapy. From years of expertise studying cellular immune responses, and from our preliminary data, we know several of these individuals have intact virus-specific CD4+ T cell responses. Our goalwith this project is to identify interactions between CD4+ T cells and B cells that predict the ability of HIV-infected individuals to generate broadly neutralizing antibodies. We have also designed new technology that allows us to sort B cells specific for HIV envelope, which we will use to isolate B cell clones from subjects with broadly neutralizing antibody activity. The outcome of this project will be a comprehensive picture of helper function required to maintain B cell responses, assays to assess CD4-B cell function in chronically infected and vaccinated individuals, and new antibody reagents that will be used to further characterize HIV neutralizing activity.

Public Health Relevance

Understanding the factors that allow the generation of broadly neutralizing antibodies is critical to vaccine development. In this project we will explore the hypothesis that intact interactions between T cells and B cells is critical to the development and maintenance of broadly neutralizing antibodies in HIV-infected individuals.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
Type
Research Program Projects (P01)
Project #
5P01AI078064-02
Application #
8103004
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZAI1)
Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
2010-07-01
Budget End
2011-06-30
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2010
Total Cost
$530,363
Indirect Cost
Name
Oregon Health and Science University
Department
Type
DUNS #
096997515
City
Portland
State
OR
Country
United States
Zip Code
97239
Nicholas, Katherine J; Flaherty, David K; Smith, Rita M et al. (2017) Chronic HIV-1 Infection Impairs Superantigen-Induced Activation of Peripheral CD4+CXCR5+PD-1+ Cells, With Relative Preservation of Recall Antigen-Specific Responses. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr 74:72-80
Nicholas, Katherine J; Greenplate, Allison R; Flaherty, David K et al. (2016) Multiparameter analysis of stimulated human peripheral blood mononuclear cells: A comparison of mass and fluorescence cytometry. Cytometry A 89:271-80
Hessell, Ann J; Malherbe, Delphine C; Pissani, Franco et al. (2016) Achieving Potent Autologous Neutralizing Antibody Responses against Tier 2 HIV-1 Viruses by Strategic Selection of Envelope Immunogens. J Immunol 196:3064-78
Hessell, Ann J; Haigwood, Nancy L (2015) Animal models in HIV-1 protection and therapy. Curr Opin HIV AIDS 10:170-6
Sather, D Noah; Carbonetti, Sara; Malherbe, Delphine C et al. (2014) Emergence of broadly neutralizing antibodies and viral coevolution in two subjects during the early stages of infection with human immunodeficiency virus type 1. J Virol 88:12968-81
Cohen, Kristen; Altfeld, Marcus; Alter, Galit et al. (2014) Early preservation of CXCR5+ PD-1+ helper T cells and B cell activation predict the breadth of neutralizing antibody responses in chronic HIV-1 infection. J Virol 88:13310-21
Malherbe, Delphine C; Pissani, Franco; Sather, D Noah et al. (2014) Envelope variants circulating as initial neutralization breadth developed in two HIV-infected subjects stimulate multiclade neutralizing antibodies in rabbits. J Virol 88:12949-67
Pissani, Franco; Malherbe, Delphine C; Schuman, Jason T et al. (2014) Improvement of antibody responses by HIV envelope DNA and protein co-immunization. Vaccine 32:507-13
Nicholas, Katherine J; Zern, Emily K; Barnett, Louise et al. (2013) B cell responses to HIV antigen are a potent correlate of viremia in HIV-1 infection and improve with PD-1 blockade. PLoS One 8:e84185
Pissani, Franco; Malherbe, Delphine C; Robins, Harlan et al. (2012) Motif-optimized subtype A HIV envelope-based DNA vaccines rapidly elicit neutralizing antibodies when delivered sequentially. Vaccine 30:5519-26

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