npj Vaccines (Mar 2023)

Autologous dendritic cell vaccination against HIV-1 induces changes in natural killer cell phenotype and functionality

  • Thessa Laeremans,
  • Sabine den Roover,
  • Cynthia Lungu,
  • Sigrid D’haese,
  • Rob A. Gruters,
  • Sabine D. Allard,
  • Joeri L. Aerts

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41541-023-00631-z
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 1
pp. 1 – 13

Abstract

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Abstract Although natural killer (NK) cells have been studied in connection with dendritic cell (DC)-based vaccination in the field of cancer immunology, their role has barely been addressed in the context of therapeutic vaccination against HIV-1. In this study, we evaluated whether a therapeutic DC-based vaccine consisting of monocyte-derived DCs electroporated with Tat, Rev and Nef encoding mRNA affects NK cell frequency, phenotype and functionality in HIV-1-infected individuals. Although the frequency of total NK cells did not change, we observed a significant increase in cytotoxic NK cells following immunisation. In addition, significant changes in the NK cell phenotype associated with migration and exhaustion were observed together with increased NK cell-mediated killing and (poly)functionality. Our results show that DC-based vaccination has profound effects on NK cells, which highlights the importance of evaluating NK cells in future clinical trials looking at DC-based immunotherapy in the context of HIV-1 infection.