Mucosal SIV vaccines comprising inactivated virus particles and bacterial adjuvants induce CD8+T-regulatory cells that suppress SIV positive CD4+cell activation and prevent SIV infection in the macaque model.

A new paradigm of mucosal vaccination against HIV infection has been investigated in the macaque model. A vaccine consisting of inactivated SIVmac239 particles together with a living bacterial adjuvant (either the Calmette & Guerin bacillus, lactobacillus plantarum or Lactobacillus rhamnosus) was administered to macaques via the vaginal or oral/intragastic route. In contrast to all established human and veterinary vaccines, these three vaccine regimens did not elicit SIV-specific antibodies nor cytotoxic T-lymphocytes but induced a previously unrecognized population of non-cytolytic MHCIb/E-restricted CD8+T regulatory cells that suppressed the activation of SIV positive CD4+ T-lymphocytes. SIV reverse transcription was thereby blocked in inactivated CD4+ T-cells; the initial burst of virus replication was prevented and the vaccinated macaques were protected from a challenge infection. Three to 14 months after intragastric immunization, 24 macaques were challenged intrarectally with a high dose of SIVmac239 or with the heterologous strain SIV B670 (both strains grown on macaques PBMC). Twenty-three of these animals were found to be protected for up to 48 months while all 24 control macaques became infected. This protective effect against SIV challenge together with the concomitant identification of a robust ex-vivo correlate of protection suggests a new approach for developing an HIV vaccine in humans. The induction of this new class of CD8+ T regulatory cells could also possibly be used therapeutically for suppressing HIV replication in infected patients and this novel tolerogenic vaccine paradigm may have potential applications for treating a wide range of immune disorders and is likely to may have profound implications across immunology generally

Suppression of HIV Replication by CD8+ Regulatory T-Cells in Elite Controllers

We previously demonstrated in the Chinese macaque model that an oral vaccine made of inactivated SIV and lactobacillus plantarum induced CD8+regulatory T-cells which suppressed the activation of SIV+CD4+T-cells, prevented SIV replication and protected macaques from SIV challenges.Here ,we sought whether a similar population of CD8+T-regs would induce the suppression of HIV replication in elite controllers (ECs), a small population (3‰) of HIV-infected patients with undetectable HIV replication. For that purpose, we investigated the in vitro antiviral activity of fresh CD8+T-cells on HIV-infected CD4+T-cells taken from 10 ECs. The 10 ECs had a classical genomic profile: all of them carried the KIR3DL1 gene and nine carried at least one allele of HLA-B:Bw4-80Ile ( i.e. with an isoleucine residue at position 80). In the nine HLA-B:Bw4-80Ile positive patients, we demonstrated a strong viral suppression byKIR3DL1-expressing CD8+T-cells that required cell-to-cell contact to switch off the activation signals in infected CD4+T-cells. KIR3DL1-expressing CD8+T-cells withdrawal and KIR3DL1 neutralization by a specific anti-KIR antibody inhibited the suppression of viral replication. Our findings provide the first evidence for an instrumental role of KIR-expressing CD8+ regulatory T- cells in the natural control of HIV-1 infection