Monocyte-derived transcriptome signature indicates antibody-dependent cellular phagocytosis as a potential mechanism of vaccine-induced protection against HIV-1.

A gene signature was previously found to be correlated with mosaic adenovirus 26 vaccine protection in simian immunodeficiency virus and simian-human immunodeficiency virus challenge models in non-human primates. In this report, we investigated the presence of this signature as a correlate of reduced risk in human clinical trials and potential mechanisms of protection. The absence of this gene signature in the DNA/rAd5 human vaccine trial, which did not show efficacy, strengthens our hypothesis that this signature is only enriched in studies that demonstrated protection. This gene signature was enriched in the partially effective RV144 human trial that administered the ALVAC/protein vaccine, and we find that the signature associates with both decreased risk of HIV-1 acquisition and increased vaccine efficacy (VE). Total RNA-seq in a clinical trial that used the same vaccine regimen as the RV144 HIV vaccine implicated antibody-dependent cellular phagocytosis (ADCP) as a potential mechanism of vaccine protection. CITE-seq profiling of 53 surface markers and transcriptomes of 53,777 single cells from the same trial showed that genes in this signature were primarily expressed in cells belonging to the myeloid lineage, including monocytes, which are major effector cells for ADCP. The consistent association of this transcriptome signature with VE represents a tool both to identify potential mechanisms, as with ADCP here, and to screen novel approaches to accelerate the development of new vaccine candidates.

A vaccine-induced gene expression signature correlates with protection against SIV and HIV in multiple trials.

Current HIV vaccines are only partially efficacious, presenting an opportunity to identify correlates of protection and, thereby, potential insight into mechanisms that prevent HIV acquisition. Two independent preclinical challenge studies in nonhuman primates (NHPs) previously showed partial efficacy of a mosaic adenovirus 26 (Ad26)-based HIV-1 vaccine candidate. To investigate the basis of this protection, we performed whole transcriptomics profiling by RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) in sorted lymphocytes from peripheral blood samples taken during these studies at different time points after vaccination but before challenge. We observed a transcriptional signature in B cells that associated with protection from acquisition of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) or the simian-human immunodeficiency virus (SHIV) in both studies. Strong antibody responses were elicited, and genes from the signature for which expression was enriched specifically associated with higher magnitude of functional antibody responses. The same gene expression signature also associated with protection in RV144 in the only human HIV vaccine trial to date that has shown efficacy and in two additional NHP studies that evaluated similar canarypox-based vaccine regimens. A composite gene expression score derived from the gene signature was one of the top-ranked correlates of protection in the NHP vaccine studies. This study aims to bridge preclinical and clinical data with the identification of a gene signature in B cells that is associated with protection from SIV and HIV infection by providing a new approach for evaluating future vaccine candidates.