Zizhang Sheng

Maturation Pathway from Germline to Broad HIV-1 Neutralizer of a CD4-Mimic Antibody

Antibodies with ontogenies from VH1-2 or VH1-46-germline genes dominate the broadly neutralizing response against the CD4-binding site (CD4bs) on HIV-1. Here, we define with longitudinal sampling from time-of-infection the development of a VH1-46-derived antibody lineage that matured to neutralize 90% of HIV-1 isolates. Structures of lineage antibodies CH235 (week 41 from time-of-infection, 18% breadth), CH235.9 (week 152, 77%), and CH235.12 (week 323, 90%) demonstrated the maturing epitope to focus on the conformationally invariant portion of the CD4bs. Similarities between CH235 lineage and five unrelated CD4bs lineages in epitope focusing, length-of-time to develop breadth, and extraordinary level of somatic hypermutation suggested commonalities in maturation among all CD4bs antibodies. Fortunately, the required CH235-lineage hypermutation appeared substantially guided by the intrinsic mutability of the VH1-46 gene, which closely resembled VH1-2. We integrated our CH235-lineage findings with a second broadly neutralizing lineage and HIV-1 co-evolution to suggest a vaccination strategy for inducing both lineages.

Maturation and Diversity of the VRC01-Antibody Lineage over 15 Years of Chronic HIV-1 Infection

HIV-1-neutralizing antibodies develop in most HIV-1-infected individuals, although highly effective antibodies are generally observed only after years of chronic infection. Here, we characterize the rate of maturation and extent of diversity for the lineage that produced the broadly neutralizing antibody VRC01 through longitudinal sampling of peripheral B cell transcripts over 15 years and co-crystal structures of lineage members. Next-generation sequencing identified VRC01-lineage transcripts, which encompassed diverse antibodies organized into distinct phylogenetic clades. Prevalent clades maintained characteristic features of antigen recognition, though each evolved binding loops and disulfides that formed distinct recognition surfaces. Over the course of the study period, VRC01-lineage clades showed continuous evolution, with rates of ∼2 substitutions per 100 nucleotides per year, comparable to that of HIV-1 evolution. This high rate of antibody evolution provides a mechanism by which antibody lineages can achieve extraordinary diversity and, over years of chronic infection, develop effective HIV-1 neutralization.

Induction of HIV Neutralizing Antibody Lineages in Mice with Diverse Precursor Repertoires

The design of immunogens that elicit broadly reactive neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) has been a major obstacle to HIV-1 vaccine development. One approach to assess potential immunogens is to use mice expressing precursors of human bnAbs as vaccination models. The bnAbs of the VRC01-class derive from the IGHV1-2 immunoglobulin heavy chain and neutralize a wide spectrum of HIV-1 strains via targeting the CD4 binding site of the envelope glycoprotein gp120. We now describe a mouse vaccination model that allows a germline human IGHV1-2(∗)02 segment to undergo normal V(D)J recombination and, thereby, leads to the generation of peripheral B cells that express a highly diverse repertoire of VRC01-related receptors. When sequentially immunized with modified gp120 glycoproteins designed to engage VRC01 germline and intermediate antibodies, IGHV1-2(∗)02-rearranging mice, which also express a VRC01-antibody precursor light chain, can support the affinity maturation of VRC01 precursor antibodies into HIV-neutralizing antibody lineages.

Quality and quantity of TFH cells are critical for broad antibody development in SHIVAD8 infection.

T follicular helper cells associate with development of highly mutated neutralizing antibodies against SHIV. How antibodies mature Antibodies are stalwart protectors against infection, but even antibodies need a little help to do their jobs. T follicular helper (TFH) cells can guide B cells to produce antibodies with improved specificity to a particular pathogen through a process called affinity maturation. Now, Yamamoto et al. report that in nonhuman primates, the frequency and quality of TFH cells were associated with the development of broadly neutralizing antibodies that may be protective against SHIV. These findings suggest that HIV vaccines that incorporate TFH cell stimulation may boost broadly neutralizing antibody production. Broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) protect against HIV-1 infection, yet how they are generated during chronic infection remains unclear. It is known that T follicular helper (TFH) cells are needed to promote affinity maturation of B cells during an immune response; however, the role of TFH during HIV-1 infection is undefined within lymph node germinal centers (GCs). We use nonhuman primates to investigate the relationship in the early stage of chronic SHIVAD8 (simian-human immunodeficiency virus AD8) infection between envelope (Env)–specific TFH cells, Env-specific B cells, virus, and the generation of bNAbs during later infection. We found that both the frequency and quality of Env-specific TFH cells were associated with an expansion of Env-specific immunoglobulin G–positive GC B cells and broader neutralization across HIV clades. We also found a correlation between breadth of neutralization and the degree of somatic hypermutation in Env-specific memory B cells. Finally, we observed high viral loads and greater diversity of Env sequences in rhesus macaques that developed cross-reactive neutralization as compared to those that did not. These studies highlight the importance of boosting high-quality TFH populations as part of a robust vaccine regimen aimed at eliciting bNabs.

Analysis of immunoglobulin transcripts and hypermutation following SHIV(AD8) infection and protein-plus-adjuvant immunization.

Developing predictive animal models to assess how candidate vaccines and infection influence the ontogenies of Envelope (Env)-specific antibodies is critical for the development of an HIV vaccine. Here we use two nonhuman primate models to compare the roles of antigen persistence, diversity and innate immunity. We perform longitudinal analyses of HIV Env-specific B-cell receptor responses to SHIVAD8 infection and Env protein vaccination with eight different adjuvants. A subset of the SHIVAD8-infected animals with higher viral loads and greater Env diversity show increased neutralization associated with increasing somatic hypermutation (SHM) levels over time. The use of adjuvants results in increased ELISA titres but does not affect the mean SHM levels or CDR H3 lengths. Our study shows how the ontogeny of Env-specific B cells can be tracked, and provides insights into the requirements for developing neutralizing antibodies that should facilitate translation to human vaccine studies.

Single-Cell and Deep Sequencing of IgG-Switched Macaque B Cells Reveal a Diverse Ig Repertoire following Immunization

The nonhuman primate model is important for preclinical evaluation of prophylactic and therapeutic intervention strategies. The recent description of the rhesus macaque germline Ig loci and establishment of a database of germline gene segments offer improved opportunities to delineate Ig gene usage in the overall B cell repertoire as well as in response to vaccination. We applied 454-pyrosequencing and single-cell RT-PCR of bulk and sorted memory B cells, respectively, to investigate IGHV gene segment expression in rhesus macaques. The two methods gave remarkably concordant results and identified groups of gene segments that are frequently or rarely used. We further examined the VH repertoire of Ag-specific memory B cells induced by immunization with recombinant HIV-1 envelope glycoproteins, an important vaccine component. We demonstrate that HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein immunization activates a highly polyclonal response composed of most of the expressed VH gene segments, illustrating the considerable genetic diversity of responding B cells following vaccination.

Effects of Darwinian Selection and Mutability on Rate of Broadly Neutralizing Antibody Evolution during HIV-1 Infection

Accumulation of somatic mutations in antibody variable regions is critical for antibody affinity maturation, with HIV-1 broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) generally requiring years to develop. We recently found that the rate at which mutations accumulate decreases over time, but the mechanism governing this slowing is unclear. In this study, we investigated whether natural selection and/or mutability of the antibody variable region contributed significantly to observed decrease in rate. We used longitudinally sampled sequences of immunoglobulin transcripts of single lineages from each of 3 donors, as determined by next generation sequencing. We estimated the evolutionary rates of the complementarity determining regions (CDRs), which are most significant for functional selection, and found they evolved about 1.5- to 2- fold faster than the framework regions. We also analyzed the presence of AID hotspots and coldspots at different points in lineage development and observed an average decrease in mutability of less than 10 percent over time. Altogether, the correlation between Darwinian selection strength and evolutionary rate trended toward significance, especially for CDRs, but cannot fully explain the observed changes in evolutionary rate. The mutability modulated by AID hotspots and coldspots changes correlated only weakly with evolutionary rates. The combined effects of Darwinian selection and mutability contribute substantially to, but do not fully explain, evolutionary rate change for HIV-1-targeting bnAb lineages.

Targeted Isolation of Antibodies Directed against Major Sites of SIV Env Vulnerability

The simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) challenge model of lentiviral infection is often used as a model to human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) for studying vaccine mediated and immune correlates of protection. However, knowledge of the structure of the SIV envelope (Env) glycoprotein is limited, as is knowledge of binding specificity, function and potential efficacy of SIV antibody responses. In this study we describe the use of a competitive probe binding sort strategy as well as scaffolded probes for targeted isolation of SIV Env-specific monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). We isolated nearly 70 SIV-specific mAbs directed against major sites of SIV Env vulnerability analogous to broadly neutralizing antibody (bnAb) targets of HIV-1, namely, the CD4 binding site (CD4bs), CD4-induced (CD4i)-site, peptide epitopes in variable loops 1, 2 and 3 (V1, V2, V3) and potentially glycan targets of SIV Env. The range of SIV mAbs isolated includes those exhibiting varying degrees of neutralization breadth and potency as well as others that demonstrated binding but not neutralization. Several SIV mAbs displayed broad and potent neutralization of a diverse panel of 20 SIV viral isolates with some also neutralizing HIV-27312A. This extensive panel of SIV mAbs will facilitate more effective use of the SIV non-human primate (NHP) model for understanding the variables in development of a HIV vaccine or immunotherapy.

Gene-Specific Substitution Profiles Describe the Types and Frequencies of Amino Acid Changes during Antibody Somatic Hypermutation

Somatic hypermutation (SHM) plays a critical role in the maturation of antibodies, optimizing recognition initiated by recombination of V(D)J genes. Previous studies have shown that the propensity to mutate is modulated by the context of surrounding nucleotides and that SHM machinery generates biased substitutions. To investigate the intrinsic mutation frequency and substitution bias of SHMs at the amino acid level, we analyzed functional human antibody repertoires and developed mGSSP (method for gene-specific substitution profile), a method to construct amino acid substitution profiles from next-generation sequencing-determined B cell transcripts. We demonstrated that these gene-specific substitution profiles (GSSPs) are unique to each V gene and highly consistent between donors. We also showed that the GSSPs constructed from functional antibody repertoires are highly similar to those constructed from antibody sequences amplified from non-productively rearranged passenger alleles, which do not undergo functional selection. This suggests the types and frequencies, or mutational space, of a majority of amino acid changes sampled by the SHM machinery to be well captured by GSSPs. We further observed the rates of mutational exchange between some amino acids to be both asymmetric and context dependent and to correlate weakly with their biochemical properties. GSSPs provide an improved, position-dependent alternative to standard substitution matrices, and can be utilized to developing software for accurately modeling the SHM process. GSSPs can also be used for predicting the amino acid mutational space available for antigen-driven selection and for understanding factors modulating the maturation pathways of antibody lineages in a gene-specific context. The mGSSP method can be used to build, compare, and plot GSSPs1; we report the GSSPs constructed for 69 common human V genes (DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.3511083) and provide high-resolution logo plots for each (DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.3511085).

Antibodyomics: bioinformatics technologies for understanding B‐cell immunity to HIV‐1

Numerous antibodies have been identified from HIV‐1‐infected donors that neutralize diverse strains of HIV‐1. These antibodies may provide the basis for a B cell‐mediated HIV‐1 vaccine. However, it has been unclear how to elicit similar antibodies by vaccination. To address this issue, we have undertaken an informatics‐based approach to understand the genetic and immunologic processes controlling the development of HIV‐1‐neutralizing antibodies. As DNA sequencing comprises the fastest growing database of biological information, we focused on incorporating next‐generation sequencing of B‐cell transcripts to determine the origin, maturation pathway, and prevalence of broadly neutralizing antibody lineages (Antibodyomics1, 2, 4, and 6). We also incorporated large‐scale robotic analyses of serum neutralization to identify and quantify neutralizing antibodies in donor cohorts (Antibodyomics3). Statistical analyses furnish another layer of insight (Antibodyomics5), with physical characteristics of antibodies and their targets through molecular dynamics simulations (Antibodyomics7) and free energy perturbation analyses (Antibodyomics8) providing information‐rich output. Functional interrogation of individual antibodies (Antibodyomics9) and synthetic antibody libraries (Antibodyomics10) also yields multi‐dimensional data by which to understand and improve antibodies. Antibodyomics, described here, thus comprise resolution‐enhancing tools, which collectively embody an information‐driven discovery engine aimed toward the development of effective B cell‐based vaccines.