Programming the magnitude and persistence of antibody responses with innate immunity

• Published in: Nature (London) 2011-02, Vol.470 (7335), p.543-547
• Main Authors: Kasturi, Sudhir Pai, Skountzou, Ioanna, Albrecht, Randy A., Koutsonanos, Dimitrios, Hua, Tang, Nakaya, Helder I., Ravindran, Rajesh, Stewart, Shelley, Alam, Munir, Kwissa, Marcin, Villinger, Francois, Murthy, Niren, Steel, John, Jacob, Joshy, Hogan, Robert J., García-Sastre, Adolfo, Compans, Richard, Pulendran, Bali
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 631/1647/350/354; 631/250/251/1567; 692/699/255/1578; Animals; Antibodies; Antibodies, Neutralizing - biosynthesis; Antibodies, Neutralizing - immunology; Antibodies, Viral - biosynthesis; Antibodies, Viral - immunology; Antibody Formation - immunology; Avian flu; Biological and medical sciences; Chemical properties; Dendritic Cells - cytology; Dendritic Cells - immunology; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Fundamental immunology; Genetics of the immune response; Hemagglutinin Glycoproteins, Influenza Virus - immunology; Humanities and Social Sciences; Immune system; Immunity; Immunity, Innate - immunology; Immunization; Immunobiology; Immunologic Memory - immunology; Immunology; Influenza A Virus, H1N1 Subtype - immunology; Influenza A Virus, H5N1 Subtype - immunology; Influenza Vaccines - administration & dosage; Influenza Vaccines - immunology; Lactic Acid; letter; Ligands; Lymph nodes; Lymph Nodes - cytology; Lymph Nodes - immunology; Lymphocyte Activation; Macaca mulatta - immunology; Macaca mulatta - virology; Mice; Mice, Inbred BALB C; Mice, Inbred C57BL; multidisciplinary; Nanoparticles; Nanoparticles - administration & dosage; Pandemics; Plasma; Plasma Cells - cytology; Plasma Cells - immunology; Plasma Cells - metabolism; Polyglycolic Acid; Polylactic Acid-Polyglycolic Acid Copolymer; Proteins; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); T-Lymphocytes - immunology; Toll-Like Receptors - immunology; Toll-Like Receptors - metabolism; Vaccines; Vector-borne diseases; Viral antibodies
• ISSN: 0028-0836; 1476-4687
• DOI: 10.1038/nature09737

Vaccines given a boost A feature of many successful vaccines is the induction of memory B cells and long-lived plasma cells that can secrete neutralizing antibodies for a lifetime. The mechanisms that stimulate such persistent responses remain poorly understood. Bali Pulendran and colleagues show that nanoparticles containing two Toll-like receptor ligands, proteins with important roles in innate immunity, can boost the magnitude and persistence of vaccine-elicited antibody responses in primates, improving vaccine-mediated protection against influenza virus. Here it is shown that nanoparticles containing two Toll-like receptor ligands can boost the magnitude and persistence of vaccine-elicited antibody responses in primates, improving vaccine-mediated protection against influenza virus. Many successful vaccines induce persistent antibody responses that can last a lifetime. The mechanisms by which they do so remain unclear, but emerging evidence indicates that they activate dendritic cells via Toll-like receptors (TLRs) 1 , 2 . For example, the yellow fever vaccine YF-17D, one of the most successful empiric vaccines ever developed 3 , activates dendritic cells via multiple TLRs to stimulate proinflammatory cytokines 4 , 5 . Triggering specific combinations of TLRs in dendritic cells can induce synergistic production of cytokines 6 , which results in enhanced T-cell responses, but its impact on antibody responses remain unknown. Learning the critical parameters of innate immunity that program such antibody responses remains a major challenge in vaccinology. Here we demonstrate that immunization of mice with synthetic nanoparticles containing antigens plus ligands that signal through TLR4 and TLR7 induces synergistic increases in antigen-specific, neutralizing antibodies compared to immunization with nanoparticles containing antigens plus a single TLR ligand. Consistent with this there was enhanced persistence of germinal centres and of plasma-cell responses, which persisted in the lymph nodes for >1.5 years. Surprisingly, there was no enhancement of the early short-lived plasma-cell response relative to that observed with single TLR ligands. Molecular profiling of activated B cells, isolated 7 days after immunization, indicated that there was early programming towards B-cell memory. Antibody responses were dependent on direct triggering of both TLRs on B cells and dendritic cells, as well as on T-cell help. Immunization protected completely against lethal av