CD4+ T Cell Depletion Before Primary Dengue and/or Secondary Zika Infection Reveals Mechanistic Correlates of Antibody Functionality in Rhesus Macaques.

Abstract

Dengue (DENV) virus and Zika virus (ZIKV) are two flaviviruses of major public health concern. One drawback designing effective vaccines is our limited understanding of the mechanisms ruling protection or harm among DENV serotypes, or between DENV and ZIKV. Here, we depleted rhesus macaques of CD4+ T cells in vivo before primary DENV infection and/or secondary ZIKV challenge to recreate a sub-optimal priming of the humoral immune response. Our results support that CD4+ T cells are needed to induce a quantitative and type-specific effective humoral immune response against primary DENV, but also against secondary ZIKV in DENV-experimented subjects. Our results also indicate a limited contribution of the DENV-Memory B cells to anti-ZIKV response. Furthermore, our results suggest that a suboptimal B cell priming during a primary DENV infection does differentially impact different antibody (Abs) properties. While binding or neutralization of ZIKV or DENV during a subsequent exposure to ZIKV is not affected by the lack of CD4+ T - B cells interaction during a primary DENV infection, that interaction is critical to guarantee the Abs specificity. Also, we found that depleting CD4+ T cells before DENV primary infection but not before ZIKV challenge significantly increases Abs cross-reactivity against DENV-EDIII domain and DENV-NS1 protein but not against ZIKV-EDIII domain or NS1 protein. Furthermore, there was more cross-reactivity among the DENV-NS1 proteins than against DENV-EDIII domains, suggesting that during a primary DENV infection CD4+ T cells have a different weight in the responses against EDIII domain and NS1 protein. The proper Abs binding and neutralization with increased cross-reactivity profile was associated with limited frequency of circulating peripheral T helper cells (pTfh) with T helper 1 phenotype (CD4+/CXCR5+/CXCR3+) and expressing markers related to B cell activation (CXCR5+/CXCR3+/PD-1+/ICOS+) in the group depleted of CD4+ T cells only before primary DENV infection. However, memory B cells - but not Antibody Secreting Cells (ASC) activation 7 days after the infection - positively correlate with those two populations of pTfh. Finally, when Abs cross-reactivity values were incorporated in a Principal Component Analysis (PCA), the DENV-CD4+ T depleted group separates from the other two groups with similar Abs binding and neutralization profiles. Our result strongly suggests that during a heterologous sequential DENV/ZIKV infections Abs binding, and neutralization, may be regulated by different factors than their specificity. Before, the induction of cross-neutralizing Abs has been described in the context of secondary DENV infection. Here, for the first time, we are reproducing the experimental conditions leading to the generation of such Abs population in vivo. In summary, we show that suboptimal immune priming during a primary flavivirus infection has functional consequences during a secondary heterologous infection. Finally, we shown that CD8+ T cells are essential to guarantee an optimal Abs neutralization activity. These results have huge implications understanding the immune response to DENV vaccines (and maybe ZIKV), including why an optimal vaccine or natural-induced neutralizing response not necessarily protects or enhances pathogenesis during a subsequent natural heterologous exposure.