Previous Article | Next Article ![]()
Journal of Virology, December 2005, p. 14887-14898, Vol. 79, No. 23
0022-538X/05/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JVI.79.23.14887-14898.2005
Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892
Received 21 July 2005/ Accepted 5 September 2005
|
|
|---|
|
|
|---|
It is now appreciated that prompt and rigorous control of acute primate lentivirus infections is key for durably controlling virus replication and preventing the subsequent development of disease. For example, when potent antiretroviral therapy is initiated in rhesus monkeys within 24 h of SIV inoculation, plasma viremia is markedly suppressed during or following cessation of treatment (22). A similar 28-day treatment regimen, begun on day 5 postinoculation in SIV/HIV chimeric virus (SHIV)-infected animals, resulted in durable suppression of virus replication in three of four treated macaques and a 4-year disease-free clinical course (14). Passive transfer of high-titer monoclonal or polyclonal neutralizing antibodies prior to SHIV challenge can also successfully abort the primary virus infection and in several instances resulted in sterilizing protection (24, 34, 37, 46). In addition, genetic determinants affecting major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I alleles (17, 28, 30, 31, 35), chemokines (11, 50), and chemokine receptors (7, 23, 41, 47) have been shown to alter the balance between susceptibility/resistance to both HIV-1 and other primate lentiviruses. The dose dependency of the full-blown SHIV-induced immunodeficiency syndrome (rapid and complete depletion of CD4+ T lymphocytes within weeks of virus inoculation was observed with large, but not small [<625 50% tissue culture infective doses {TCID50}], virus inocula [9]) is yet another illustration of the race between vigorous SHIV replication/systemic dissemination and containment by effective host responses (9, 14).
The recent development and use of humanized monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) to deplete specific immune cell populations has provided an in vivo approach to study the contributions of individual lymphocyte subsets in controlling lentiviral infections in nonhuman primates (15, 16, 25, 43, 44). In this study, MAbs were used to deplete CD8+ or CD20+ cells to assess their role in controlling the acute infection of an attenuated molecularly cloned SHIV, designated SHIVDH12R-Clone 8. Unlike the isogenic and highly pathogenic SHIVDH12R-Clone 7, which causes a rapid, systemic, and irreversible depletion of CD4+ T cells and immunodeficiency requiring euthanasia within 13 to 30 weeks of virus inoculation, SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 induces a transient loss of CD4+ T cells, low to undetectable levels of postpeak plasma viremia, and a benign clinical course even when large amounts of virus (
5,000 TCID50) are inoculated (40). Not unexpectedly, MAb-mediated ablation of CD8+ cells at the time of SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 inoculation of Mamu-A*01-negative animals resulted in high sustained levels of postpeak plasma viremia, the rapid and complete loss of CD4+ T cells, and the induction of immunodeficiency. Surprisingly, administration of the anti-CD20 MAb also induced the full-blown fatal clinical syndrome typical of SHIVDH12R-Clone 7. In contrast to these results, the depletion of CD20+ cells in Mamu-A*01-positive rhesus monkeys at the time of their infection with SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 did not lead to the rapid and complete loss of CD4+ T lymphocytes or the development of disease, whereas the administration of the anti-CD8 MAb induced a rapidly downhill clinical course requiring euthanasia. Together, these results indicate that depending on the MHC genetic background, CD8+ and CD20+ lymphocytes play various and cooperative roles in controlling acute primate lentivirus infections.
|
|
|---|
Virus. The construction and characterization of the SHIVDH12R-Clone 7 and SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 molecular clones and their use to generate virus stocks have been described previously (40). In the experiments reported, unless specifically stated in the figure legends, 5,000 TCID50 of the same SHIVDH12R-Clone 7 or SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 stocks was inoculated into the saphenous veins of anesthetized animals.
Treatment of monkeys with MAbs. CD8+ cells were depleted by administering three doses of a mouse-human chimeric anti-CD8 antibody (cM-T807; Centocor, MA) over a 7-day period (on days 0, 3, and 7) as previously described (43). The first dose was given subcutaneously (10 mg/kg), followed by two intravenous doses (5 mg/kg). The course of cM-T807 treatment was initiated 1 day following virus inoculation. B cells were depleted by three weekly intravenous injections (20 mg/kg) of the monoclonal mouse-human chimeric anti-human CD20 antibody Rituxan (IDEC Pharmaceutical Corp., San Diego, CA). The first Rituxan injection was administered 4 days prior to virus inoculation. Two control animals were treated with an isotype-matched control MAb (Synagis; MedImmune, Gaithersburg, MD), following the routes and schedules used for anti-CD8 or anti-CD20 MAbs, respectively. The depletion of both lymphocyte subsets in the peripheral blood and lymph nodes was monitored by flow cytometry. The loss of CD20+ lymphocytes in lymph node specimens was also monitored immunohistochemically. Tissue sections were deparaffinized, subjected to high-temperature, high-pressure unmasking, and then blocked with 3% normal horse serum and 1% nonfat milk in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) and incubated with mouse anti-human CD20 (DAKO, M0755), goat anti-mouse immunoglobulin G (IgG) biotinylated secondary antibody (Vector Labs), ABC-peroxidase reagent (Vector Labs), and then diaminobenzidine. All stained sections were examined on a Zeiss Axiophot microscope.
Plasma viral RNA measurements. Plasma viral RNA levels were determined by real-time PCR (ABI Prism 7700 sequence detection system; Applied Biosystems, Foster City, Calif.) utilizing reverse-transcribed viral RNA from macaque plasma samples as previously described (9).
Lymphocyte immunophenotyping and tetramer staining.
EDTA-treated blood samples were stained with fluorochrome-conjugated MAbs CD3
-fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC), CD4-allophycocyanin (APC), CD8-peridinin chlorophyll protein (PerCP), and CD20-phycoerythrin (PE) (BD Biosciences, San Diego, CA) and analyzed by flow cytometry (FACSCalibur; BD Biosciences). In depletion experiments, blood samples and lymph node suspensions from antibody-treated animals were stained with CD3
-PerCP, CD4-APC (BD Biosciences), CD8-PE (clone DK25; DakoCytomation, Carpinteria, CA), and CD20-FITC (clone B9E9; Immunotech, Beckman Coulter, Marseille, France). Preliminary experiments demonstrated that the staining anti-CD8 (clone DK25) and anti-CD20 (clone B9E9) MAbs did not compete with the depleting anti-CD8 (cM-T807) and anti-CD20 (Rituxan, C2B8) MAbs, respectively. For tetramer analyses, blood samples were surface stained with CD3
-FITC, CD8-PerCP, CD28-PE (Becton Dickinson, San Jose, CA), and SIV Gag iTAG (CM9[CTPYDINQM])-MamuA*01 tetramer-APC (Beckman Coulter, Immunomics Operations, San Diego, CA) as previously described (2).
Intracellular cytokine detection.
Suspensions (2.0 x 106 cells/ml) of freshly isolated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from rhesus macaque whole blood were incubated for 1 hour at 37°C with 1 µg/ml of anti-CD28 and anti-CD49d monoclonal antibodies (BD Biosciences, San Jose, CA) and stimulated with CM9 peptide (0.5 µM) or mock treated. Brefeldin A (Sigma, St. Louis, MO) was added (10 µg/ml) to block cytokine secretion, and the cells were incubated for an additional 5 h at 37°C. After being washed, the cells were stained for 30 min at 4°C with CD3
-FITC, CD8-PerCP, and APC-conjugated SIV Gag iTAG (CM9)-Mamu-A*01 tetramer. Following treatment with fluorescence-activated cell sorter lysing solution (BD Biosciences) and washing, the cells were permeabilized using fluorescence-activated cell sorter permeabilizing solution 2 (BD Biosciences) and then stained with gamma interferon (IFN-
)-PE (BD Biosciences PharMingen). Acquisition was performed using a FACScalibur flow cytometer (BD Biosciences), collecting at least 50,000 CD3+ CD8+ lymphocytes in list mode. Data were analyzed with CellQuest Pro (BD Biosciences).
Proliferation of Mamu-A*01-positive CD8+ T lymphocytes by CFSE dilution assay. Rhesus macaque B-lymphocyte cell lines (B-LCL) were established by infecting freshly isolated PBMC with Herpesvirus papio present in the supernatant of the 594S cell line (39). The stable B-cell lines were maintained in RPMI 1640 medium (Biowhittaker, Walkersville, MD) supplemented with 20% heat-inactivated fetal bovine serum (FBS) (HyClone, Logan, UT), 2 mM L-glutamine, 1 mM sodium pyruvate, 100 U/ml penicillin G, and 100 U/ml streptomycin (R20 medium). Stable B-LCL and freshly purified PBMC, collected from animals at 2 weeks postinfection, were washed in 37°C prewarmed PBS plus 0.5% FBS and then resuspended in the same buffer at 10 x 106 cells/ml. Cells were stained with 5 -and 6-carboxyfluorescein diacetate succinimidyl ester (CFSE) (Molecular Probes, Eugene, OR) at 10 µM for 10 min at 37°C and washed once with 10 volumes of PBS plus 0.5% FBS and twice with culture medium. Two million B-LCL cells were pulsed with the CM9 peptide at 0.2 µM or mock pulsed for 1 h at 37°C. After incubation, the cells were irradiated (3,000 rads) and washed twice with culture medium, and 0.5 x 106 pulsed and CSFE-stained autologous B cells were mixed with 2.0 x 106 CFSE-stained PBMC in 1 ml medium and incubated at 37°C for 6 days. Following cultivation, the cells were collected, washed twice with PBS plus 0.5% FBS, and surface stained with CD8-PerCP and APC-conjugated SIV Gag iTAG (CM9)-Mamu-A*01 tetramer. Acquisition and data analysis were performed as described above.
Antiviral IgG/IgM enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and virus neutralization assays. Anti-SHIV IgG in the plasma of SHIVDH12R-Clone 8-infected macaques was measured using Vironostika HIV-1 Microelisa System (Organon Teknika, Durham, NC) kits as specified by the manufacturer with the following modifications. Antigen-coated microwell plates were first blocked with 5% nonfat milk in PBS (350 µl per well). Samples of macaque plasma were diluted 1:6 in 5% PBS-nonfat milk and incubated for 1 h at 37°C, followed by incubation overnight at 4°C. Horseradish peroxidase-conjugated polyclonal goat anti-monkey IgG (Nordic Immunological Laboratories, The Netherlands) (1:2,000 dilution in 5% PBS-nonfat milk) was used as the secondary antibody to measure levels of antiviral IgG. The same procedure was used to detect HIV-1 specific IgM, except that horseradish peroxidase-conjugated polyclonal goat antiserum to monkey IgM (Fc specific) diluted 1:1,000 (Nordic Immunologic Laboratories) was used.
Anti-SHIV NAbs in the plasma of infected monkeys were evaluated in a 2-week assay that measures 100% neutralization, as previously described (46). Individual plasma samples were diluted threefold, using plasma from uninfected rhesus monkeys as diluent. A 5-µl aliquot of each plasma dilution was incubated with 5 TCID50 (in 5 µl) of SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 at room temperature for 1 h and was then used to infect MT-4 cells in quadruplicate. Infected cultures were maintained for 2 weeks, and virus replication was monitored by 32P-reverse transcriptase assays (49).
|
|
|---|
![]() View larger version (28K): [in a new window] |
FIG. 1. SHIVDH12R-Clone 7 and SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 induce distinct clinical outcomes in infected rhesus monkeys. Rhesus monkeys were inoculated intravenously with the indicated amounts (TCID50) of SHIVDH12R-Clone 7 or SHIVDH12R-Clone 8. The levels of CD4+ T cells (A and C) and plasma viral RNA (B) in the peripheral blood were monitored over the first 40 weeks (A and B) or over a 220-week period (C).
|
![]() View larger version (21K): [in a new window] |
FIG. 2. Treatment of individual rhesus macaques with an anti-CD8 MAb during acute SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 infection. Animals (CE96 and CK3A) were injected intravenously with the anti-CD8 MAb beginning 1day following virus inoculation. Peripheral blood CD8+ lymphocyte (A), CD4+ lymphocyte numbers (B), and plasma viral RNA levels (C) were measured at the indicated times. Animal CK1K received an isotype-matched control MAb. The arrows indicate the times of antibody treatment on days +1, +4, and +8 relative to SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 inoculation.
|
Treatment of individual rhesus macaques with anti-CD20 MAbs during acute SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 infection also results in uncontrolled plasma viremia and the development of disease. The role of B cells in durably controlling the acute SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 infection in rhesus monkeys was examined by administering three weekly injections of the depleting anti-CD20 MAb Rituxan. In a preliminary experiment, Rituxan treatment of an uninfected animal (CE43) resulted in the rapid depletion of CD20+ lymphocytes in the peripheral blood (Fig. 3A) and lymph nodes (data not shown). This marked loss of B lymphocytes lasted 4 weeks, at which time this subset gradually returned to pretreatment values (Fig. 3A). This effect was similar to that previously reported following Rituxan administration to uninfected rhesus monkeys (44) and was accompanied by some reduction of total circulating CD8+ lymphocytes in macaque CE43.
![]() View larger version (25K): [in a new window] |
FIG. 3. Treatment of individual rhesus macaques with an anti-CD20 MAb during the acute SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 infection. An uninfected monkey (CE43) was injected intravenously with three doses of the anti-CD20 MAb Rituxan, and the numbers of CD4+, CD8+, and CD20+ lymphocytes in its peripheral blood were determined (A). Intravenous administration of Rituxan to animals CJ55 and CJ61 was started 4 days prior to SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 inoculation. The number of peripheral blood CD20+ lymphocytes (B), number of CD4+ lymphocytes (C), plasma viral RNA levels (D), and CD8+ lymphocyte numbers (E) were measured at the indicated times. Animal CJ6F received an isotype-matched control MAb. The arrows indicate the times of the weekly antibody treatments.
|
SHIV-specific antibodies do not become detectable until 2 to 3 weeks after virus inoculation. The principal role of B cells in controlling the acute SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 infection is commonly thought to be their capacity to generate virus-specific antibodies. To assess the temporal appearance of such antibodies, we initially examined sequential plasma samples collected from SHIVDH12R-Clone 8-inoculated monkeys that either had not been treated with the anti-CD20 MAb (macaques 429 and BH30) or had received the isotype control antibody (macaque CK1K). At a plasma dilution of 1:6, SHIV-specific IgG antibodies first became demonstrable by ELISA between days 17 and 21 in the three animals (Fig. 4A).
![]() View larger version (32K): [in a new window] |
FIG. 4. Production of binding and neutralizing antibodies in untreated monkeys inoculated with SHIVDH12R-Clone 8. Virus-specific IgG (A) and IgM (B) binding antibodies were measured by ELISA using plasma samples, diluted 1:6, collected at the indicated times. OD, optical density. Neutralization of SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 was determined from the 32P-reverse transcriptase activity released into the medium on day 14 from quadruplicate cultures (C). Autoradiograms of 32P-reverse transcriptase assays, using plasma samples diluted 1:3 and collected at the indicated times, are shown.
|
Since binding assays are not necessarily a good measure of virus NAbs, we next examined the capacity of plasma samples from three untreated SHIVDH12R-Clone 8-infected macaques to block spreading virus infections in cultured MT4 cells, using 32P-reverse transcriptase activity released into the medium on day 14 as the readout (46). In this assay, nonneutralized supernatants from replicate cultures appear as black dots on the autoradiograms; the absence of dots indicates the complete neutralization of virus infectivity. In order to detect any residual neutralization activity, relatively high concentrations (1:3 dilutions) of plasma, collected at multiple times from three untreated SHIVDH12R-Clone 8-infected monkeys, were tested against small amounts (5 TCID50) of SHIVDH12R-Clone 8. As shown in the autoradiograms in Fig. 4C, no neutralizing activity was demonstrable in any of the animals during the first 2 weeks of infection. NAbs did become detectable in all three monkeys between weeks 3 and 4 after virus inoculation. These results show that antiviral antibodies are generated during the course of SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 infections, but they emerge relatively late during the acute infection, suggesting that other B-cell functions may be involved in suppressing virus replication and preventing disease development.
Administration of anti-CD8 but not anti-CD20 MAbs to Mamu-A*01-positive monkeys inoculated with the nonpathogenic SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 results in uncontrolled virus replication and disease development. Expression of the Mamu-A*01 MHC class I allele in Indian-origin rhesus monkeys has been associated with slower disease progression in SIV-challenged animals (30, 31, 35, 36). This has been shown to be a consequence of the Mamu-A*01 allele binding to SIV epitopes recognized by dominant CTL responses during the acute viral infection (35). Site-specific PCR (18) was therefore used to assess the Mamu-A*01 status of the previously studied, randomly selected rhesus monkeys that had been treated with the depleting anti-CD8 and anti-CD20 MAbs and then inoculated with SHIVDH12R-Clone 8. All of these animals proved to be Mamu-A*01 negative (data not shown).
Having found that both CD8+ and B cells are needed for the durable suppression of virus replication in Mamu-A*01-negative macaques, we wished to assess the role of B cells in controlling the acute SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 infection in Mamu-A*01-positive animals. In an initial experiment, two Mamu-A*01-positive monkeys (CE4D and CE6F) were inoculated with SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 and experienced a partial and transient depletion of CD4+ T cells and durable low levels of postpeak viremia (data not shown), a response similar to that we previously observed in untreated SHIVDH12R-Clone 8-infected Mamu-A*01-negative animals (Fig. 1). Treatment of two other Mamu-A*01-positive monkeys (H680 and CF6T) with the anti-CD8 MAb at the time of the primary SHIVDH12R-Clone 8-infection resulted in the rapid and complete elimination of their CD8+ cells (Fig. 5A). Unlike the case for the cM-T807-treated SHIVDH12R-Clone 8-infected Mamu-A*01-negative macaques, the CD8+ lymphocytes never reappeared following anti-CD8 treatment in either of the infected Mamu-A*01-positive animals (compare Fig. 2A and 5A). Both of these virus-infected animals experienced a rapid and complete depletion of their CD4+ T lymphocytes (Fig. 5B), high levels of postpeak plasma viral RNA (Fig. 5C), and the onset of symptomatic disease requiring euthanasia at weeks 7 and 10.5 postinoculation, respectively, an outcome similar to that seen in the Mamu-A*01-negative macaques (compare to Fig. 2B and C).
![]() View larger version (17K): [in a new window] |
FIG. 5. Administration of anti-CD8 MAbs is associated with a rapid and complete depletion of CD4+ cells in Mamu-A*01-positive monkeys inoculated with the nonpathogenic SHIVDH12R-Clone 8. Animals (CF6T and H680) received the anti-CD8 antibody beginning 1 day following infection. The numbers of peripheral blood CD8+ lymphocytes (A), numbers of CD4+ lymphocytes (B), and plasma viral RNA levels (C) were measured at the indicated times. The arrows indicate the times of antibody treatment.
|
![]() View larger version (19K): [in a new window] |
FIG. 6. Administration of anti-CD20 MAb to Mamu-A*01-positive monkeys inoculated with SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 is not associated with a rapid and complete loss of CD4+ T cells. Rituxan was administered to animals H678 and CK48 4 days prior to intravenous inoculation with 5,000 TCID50 of SHIVDH12R-Clone 8. The numbers of peripheral blood CD20+ lymphocytes (A), numbers of CD4+ lymphocytes (B), and plasma viral RNA levels (C) were measured at the indicated times.
|
![]() View larger version (21K): [in a new window] |
FIG. 7. Gag peptide CM9-specific CD8+ T cells in infected Mamu-A*01-positive macaques. Sequential tetramer-positive CD8+ T-lymphocyte levels in anti-CD20 MAb-treated or untreated Mamu-A*01-positive animals during the SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 infection are shown.
|
production by CM9 tetramer-positive CD8+ T cells, following in vitro stimulation with the CM9 Gag peptide, was not affected by the depletion of CD20+ lymphocytes (Table 1). In fact, the frequency of IFN-
-producing CD8+ T cells was somewhat higher than that observed in the two untreated animals. Similarly, the capacity of tetramer-positive CD8+ T cells to proliferate following 6 days of CM9 peptide stimulation in the presence of exogenously provided autologous B cells, as measured in a CFSE dilution assay, was not significantly different in the anti-CD20 MAb-treated monkeys and the untreated animals (Table 2). Taken together, these results indicate that elimination of CD20+ lymphocytes during the acute SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 infection did not significantly affect the generation and maintenance of antiviral CTLs. |
View this table: [in a new window] |
TABLE 1. Percentages of CM9-stimulated tetramer-positive CD8+ T cells secreting IFN- at week 2 postinfection
|
|
View this table: [in a new window] |
TABLE 2. Proliferation of tetramer-positive CD8+ T cells following 6 days of CM9 peptide stimulation
|
|
|
|---|
These results are consistent with studies of Friend murine leukemia virus (MLV), which showed that the adoptive transfer of splenocytes or an admixture of CD4+, CD8+, and CD19+ cells from vaccinated animals conferred sterilizing immunity against a subsequent virus challenge (8). This finding indicated that lymphocyte subsets mediating both cellular and humoral responses were needed for complete protection against this acute murine retrovirus infection. Combinations of any two lymphocyte subsets failed to prevent MLV infection but did mediate regression of the virus-induced splenomegaly. In the mouse model, the protective effects of B cells were attributable to the antibodies they generated, since B-cell-deficient mice were poorly protected by a vaccination regimen that elicited only cellular immune responses whereas the passive transfer of virus-neutralizing antibodies, in combination with the latter vaccination regimen, provided significantly greater protection than either the antibodies or immune T cells alone (27). Our results are also consistent with a recent report examining the role of CD8+ lymphocytes in controlling a SIVmac251 challenge in recipients of a live attenuated SIV vaccine (42). That study showed that the depletion of CD8+ cells at the time of virus challenge of vaccinated animals resulted in only a partial loss of control of the ensuing plasma viremia (compared to untreated vaccinated monkeys) and suggested that both humoral and cellular immune responses were contributing to the protection observed.
MAb-mediated ablation of CD20+ lymphocytes has been previously used to assess the role of B cells during acute SIV infections of rhesus monkeys, but the effects observed were quite modest. In one study, the administration of the MAb to animals at the time of SIVmac251 inoculation resulted in the delayed appearance and lower titers of neutralizing antibodies, but the levels of peak viremia and the subsequent decline of plasma viral RNA over a 28-day observation period were similar to those observed in monkeys treated with a control antibody (44). In a second study, Rituxan was administered to three macaques inoculated with SIV-M5, an attenuated SIVmac239 derivative lacking five N-linked glycosylation sites mapping to the gp120 envelope glycoprotein (16). In untreated SIV-M5-infected animals, plasma viremia was rapidly controlled to barely detectable levels by week 20 postinoculation, whereas MAb administration resulted in high set-point levels of viral RNA in two of three SIV-M5-infected monkeys. Neither of these SIV studies reported any effect of the CD20+ lymphocyte depletion on disease induction.
We have previously reported that the immunodeficiency induced by the highly pathogenic SHIVs is the result of the direct infection and killing of an extraordinarily large fraction of quiescent naive and memory CD4+ T cells during the acute infection (32, 33). In the SHIV/macaque model, if sufficient numbers of naive CD4+ T cells are eliminated within the first 7 to 10 days of infection, there will be inadequate total residual helper T-cell activity and the infected animal is destined to rapidly succumb to immunodeficiency. If, however, an animal is infected with an attenuated SHIV strain (e.g., SHIVDH12R-Clone 8) or inoculated with relatively small amounts (e.g., <500 TCID50) of a highly pathogenic SHIV (e.g., SHIVDH12R-Clone 7), the CD4+ T-cell depletion is usually partial and transient and the battle between the virus and the immune system is shifted in favor of the immune system (9, 40). The results obtained in this study imply that B cells in combination with CD8+ lymphocytes provide some important function(s) during the critical first 7 to 10 days of the acute infection that effectively suppresses SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 replication and its capacity to induce disease. The production of NAbs, capable of contributing to the control of a primary SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 infection, is certainly the B-cell function that comes immediately to mind. However, there is a large body of published literature reporting that virus-specific NAbs arise subsequent to the suppression of HIV-1, SIV, and SHIV viremia; our own results showing that such NAbs first become detectable during the third week of SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 infections (Fig. 4) would also suggest that NAbs might not be critical in controlling virus replication during the primary infection. However, as shown in Fig. 4, low and transient levels of virus-specific IgM were detectable between days 5 and 22 in these animals, which could contribute to the virus control observed.
Numerous studies have reported that HIV-1-induced nonneutralizing antibodies, detectable within the initial weeks of the acute HIV-1 infection, may contribute to the control of virus replication in exposed individuals via opsonization, antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity, or complement-mediated inactivation mechanisms. In the case of antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity, antibodies able to inhibit primary HIV-1 strains can be measured contemporaneously with the appearance of antiviral CTLs (6). These nonneutralizing antibodies have been shown to block the replication of both autologous and heterologous virus strains in the presence of natural killer effector cells as measured in ex vivo assays (10). Antibodies present in HIV-1-infected persons at or shortly following peak plasma viremia have also been reported to mediate complement-mediated inactivation of both autologous and heterologous HIV-1 isolates by direct lysis of virions (1, 48).
In addition to giving rise to antibody-producing cells, B lymphocytes have also been reported to contribute to the activation and maintenance of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. In the context of lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus-infected mice, adoptive transfer experiments have shown that B-cell-deficient animals exhibit a profound CD4 helper T-cell deficit and reduced interleukin-2 and IFN-
secretion by CD8+ T lymphocytes (12). However, experiments assessing vaccine-mediated control of Friend MLV found that T cells from immunized B-cell-deficient mice were equivalent to T cells from wild-type animals in contributing to the resistance against a subsequent virus challenge (27). This observation is also consistent with the results obtained in our study, which show that virus-specific CTLs emerge, as measured by tetramer binding, even when B cells are undetectable during the acute SHIV infection (Fig. 7).
Previous studies have shown that Mamu-A*01-positive rhesus monkeys control their postpeak SIV plasma viremia more effectively and, in some instances survive longer, than Mamu-A*01-negative animals (30, 31, 35, 36). This resistance to the pathogenic effects of SIV was markedly enhanced in previously vaccinated macaques when the Mamu-A*01 allele was present in combination with the Mamu-B*17 and Mamu-B*29 MHC class 1 alleles (35). The reported impact of Mamu-A*01 expression in SHIV-infected rhesus monkeys is less clear. In unvaccinated animals, the peak and set-point plasma viral RNA levels were not statistically different in Mamu-A*01-positive and -negative macaques, although one study reported that Mamu-A*01-positive monkeys had longer survival times and greater preservation of lymph node architecture (36, 45, 51). In contrast to these experiments, which have assessed the role of Mamu-A*01 in the control of known pathogenic primate lentiviruses, our study examined a more subtle parameter: disease development in Mamu-A*01-positive and -negative monkeys induced by the attenuated SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 in the absence of CD8+ or CD20+ lymphocytes. Potent Mamu-A*01-positive restricted CTL responses effectively controlled viral replication, even in the absence of B cells in SHIVDH12R-Clone 8-infected monkeys, and prevented the development of immunodeficiency.
The results described in this report clearly show that prompt and effective immunologic responses directed against primate lentiviruses are required to moderate the acute infection and prevent the induction of disease. All components of the immune system play critical roles in this process. In Mamu-A*01-negative rhesus monkeys, both B and T lymphocytes were needed at the time of SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 infection to ensure a benign clinical outcome. Our results also show that a balance exists between different arms of the immune system in controlling SHIV infections. Host genetic factors, exemplified by different MHC haplotypes, can shift the balance of the composite response in either direction. In Mamu-A*01-positive macaques, CTLs were clearly dominant and still able to suppress SHIVDH12R-Clone 8 replication in the absence of B lymphocytes. Nonetheless, the potency of this response was demonstrably different in the two Rituxan-treated Mamu-A*01-positive animals as monitored by postpeak plasma viremia and CD4+ T-cell levels (Fig. 6). The variable control of virus replication in these two monkeys very likely reflects the expression of other MHC alleles in each animal, which in combination with Mamu-A*01 could further augment or diminish the antiviral cellular response, as has been previously described (35).
This research was supported by the Intramural Research Program of NIAID (NIH).
|
|
|---|
This article has been cited by other articles:
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Copyright © 2010 by the American Society for Microbiology. For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»