Lipophagy confers a key metabolic advantage that ensures protective CD8A T-cell responses against HIV-1.

ABSTRACT

Although macroautophagy/autophagy has been proposed as a critical defense mechanism against HIV-1 by targeting viral components for degradation, its contribution as a catabolic process in providing optimal anti-HIV-1 immunity has never been addressed. The failure to restore proper antiviral CD8A/CD8 T-cell immunity, especially against HIV-1, is still the major limitation of current antiretroviral therapies. Consequently, it is of clinical imperative to provide new strategies to enhance the function of HIV-1-specific CD8A T-cells in patients under antiretroviral treatments (ART). Here, we investigated whether targeting autophagy activity could be an optional solution to make this possible. Our data show that, after both polyclonal and HIV-1-specific activation, CD8A T-cells from ART displayed reduced autophagy-dependent degradation of lysosomal contents when compared to naturally HIV-1 protected elite controllers (EC). We further confirmed in EC, by using specific BECN1 gene silencing and lysosomal inhibitors, the critical role of active autophagy in superior CD8A T-cell protection against HIV-1. More importantly, we found that an IL21 treatment was effective in rescuing the antiviral CD8A T-cell immunity from ART in an autophagy-dependent manner. Finally, we established that IL21-dependent rescue occurred due to the enhanced degradation of endogenous lipids via autophagy, referred to as lipophagy, which fueled the cellular rates of mitochondrial beta-oxidation. In summary, our data show that autophagy/lipophagy can be considered as a therapeutic tool to elicit functional antiviral CD8 T-cell responses. Our results also provide additional insights toward the development of improved T-cell-based prevention and cure strategies against HIV-1.Abbreviations ART patients under antiretroviral therapy; BaF bafilomycin A1; BECN1 beclin 1; CEF cytomegalo-, Epstein-Barr- and flu-virus peptide pool; Chloro. chloroquine; EC elite controllers; FAO fatty acid beta-oxidation; HIVneg HIV-1-uninfected control donors; IFNG/IFN-γ interferon gamma; IL21 interleukin 21; MAP1LC3/LC3 microtubule associated protein 1 light chain 3; PBMC peripheral blood mononuclear cells; SQSTM1 sequestosome 1; ULK1 unc-51 like autophagy activating kinase 1.