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Russell ML, Fish CS, Drescher S, Cassidy NAJ, Chanana P, Benki-Nugent S, Slyker J, Mbori-Ngacha D, Bosire R, Richardson B, Wamalwa D, Maleche-Obimbo E, Overbaugh J, John-Stewart G, Matsen FA, Lehman DA. Using viral sequence diversity to estimate time of HIV infection in infants. PLoS Pathog 2023; 19:e1011861. [PMID: 38117834 PMCID: PMC10732395 DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1011861] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2023] [Accepted: 11/27/2023] [Indexed: 12/22/2023] Open
Abstract
Age at HIV acquisition may influence viral pathogenesis in infants, and yet infection timing (i.e. date of infection) is not always known. Adult studies have estimated infection timing using rates of HIV RNA diversification, however, it is unknown whether adult-trained models can provide accurate predictions when used for infants due to possible differences in viral dynamics. While rates of viral diversification have been well defined for adults, there are limited data characterizing these dynamics for infants. Here, we performed Illumina sequencing of gag and pol using longitudinal plasma samples from 22 Kenyan infants with well-characterized infection timing. We used these data to characterize viral diversity changes over time by designing an infant-trained Bayesian hierarchical regression model that predicts time since infection using viral diversity. We show that diversity accumulates with time for most infants (median rate within pol = 0.00079 diversity/month), and diversity accumulates much faster than in adults (compare previously-reported adult rate within pol = 0.00024 diversity/month [1]). We find that the infant rate of viral diversification varies by individual, gene region, and relative timing of infection, but not by set-point viral load or rate of CD4+ T cell decline. We compare the predictive performance of this infant-trained Bayesian hierarchical regression model with simple linear regression models trained using the same infant data, as well as existing adult-trained models [1]. Using an independent dataset from an additional 15 infants with frequent HIV testing to define infection timing, we demonstrate that infant-trained models more accurately estimate time since infection than existing adult-trained models. This work will be useful for timing HIV acquisition for infants with unknown infection timing and for refining our understanding of how viral diversity accumulates in infants, both of which may have broad implications for the future development of infant-specific therapeutic and preventive interventions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Magdalena L. Russell
- Computational Biology Program, Fred Hutch Cancer Center, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
- Molecular and Cellular Biology Program, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
| | - Carolyn S. Fish
- Division of Human Biology, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
| | - Sara Drescher
- University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
| | - Noah A. J. Cassidy
- Division of Human Biology, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
| | - Pritha Chanana
- Bioinformatics Shared Resource, Fred Hutch Cancer Center, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
| | - Sarah Benki-Nugent
- Department of Global Health, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
| | - Jennifer Slyker
- Department of Global Health, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
- Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
| | - Dorothy Mbori-Ngacha
- Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya
| | - Rose Bosire
- Centre for Clinical Research, Kenya Medical Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya
| | - Barbra Richardson
- Department of Global Health, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
- Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division, Fred Hutch Cancer Center, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
| | - Dalton Wamalwa
- Department of Global Health, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
- Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya
| | | | - Julie Overbaugh
- Division of Human Biology, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
| | - Grace John-Stewart
- Department of Global Health, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
- Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
- Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
| | - Frederick A. Matsen
- Computational Biology Program, Fred Hutch Cancer Center, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
- Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
- Department of Statistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
| | - Dara A. Lehman
- Division of Human Biology, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
- Department of Global Health, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
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Lewitus E, Hoang J, Li Y, Bai H, Rolland M. Optimal sequence-based design for multi-antigen HIV-1 vaccines using minimally distant antigens. PLoS Comput Biol 2022; 18:e1010624. [PMID: 36315492 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010624] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2022] [Accepted: 10/03/2022] [Indexed: 11/06/2022] Open
Abstract
The immense global diversity of HIV-1 is a significant obstacle to developing a safe and effective vaccine. We recently showed that infections established with multiple founder variants are associated with the development of neutralization breadth years later. We propose a novel vaccine design strategy that integrates the variability observed in acute HIV-1 infections with multiple founder variants. We developed a probabilistic model to simulate this variability, yielding a set of sequences that present the minimal diversity seen in an infection with multiple founders. We applied this model to a subtype C consensus sequence for the Envelope (Env) (used as input) and showed that the simulated Env sequences mimic the mutational landscape of an infection with multiple founder variants, including diversity at antibody epitopes. The derived set of multi-founder-variant-like, minimally distant antigens is designed to be used as a vaccine cocktail specific to a HIV-1 subtype or circulating recombinant form and is expected to promote the development of broadly neutralizing antibodies. Diverse HIV-1 populations are generally thought to promote neutralizing responses. Current leading HIV-1 vaccine design strategies maximize the distance between antigens to attempt to cover global HIV-1 diversity or serialize immunizations to recapitulate the temporal evolution of HIV-1 during infection. To date, no vaccine has elicited broadly neutralizing antibodies. As we recently demonstrated that infection with multiple HIV-1 founder variants is predictive of neutralization breadth, we propose a novel strategy that endeavors to promote the development of broadly neutralizing antibodies by replicating the diversity of multi-founder variant acute infections. By training an HIV-1 Env consensus sequence on the diversity from acute infections with multiple founders, we derived in silico a set of minimally distant antigens that is representative of the diversity seen in a multi-founder acute infection. As the model is particular to the input sequence, it can produce antigens specific to any HIV-1 subtype or circulating recombinant form (CRF). We applied this to HIV-1 subtype C and obtained a set of minimally distant antigens that can be used as a vaccine cocktail.
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Lewitus E, Townsley SM, Li Y, Donofrio GC, Dearlove BL, Bai H, Sanders-Buell E, O’Sullivan AM, Bose M, Kibuuka H, Maganga L, Nitayaphan S, Sawe FK, Eller LA, Michael NL, Polonis VR, Ake JA, Vasan S, Robb ML, Tovanabutra S, Krebs SJ, Rolland M. HIV-1 infections with multiple founders associate with the development of neutralization breadth. PLoS Pathog 2022; 18:e1010369. [PMID: 35303045 PMCID: PMC8967031 DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1010369] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/18/2021] [Revised: 03/30/2022] [Accepted: 02/16/2022] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Eliciting broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) is a cornerstone of HIV-1 vaccine strategies. Comparing HIV-1 envelope (env) sequences from the first weeks of infection to the breadth of antibody responses observed several years after infection can help define viral features critical to vaccine design. We investigated the relationship between HIV-1 env genetics and the development of neutralization breadth in 70 individuals enrolled in a prospective acute HIV-1 cohort. Half of the individuals who developed bnAbs were infected with multiple HIV-1 founder variants, whereas all individuals with limited neutralization breadth had been infected with single HIV-1 founders. Accordingly, at HIV-1 diagnosis, env diversity was significantly higher in participants who later developed bnAbs compared to those with limited breadth (p = 0.012). This association between founder multiplicity and the subsequent development of neutralization breadth was also observed in 56 placebo recipients in the RV144 vaccine efficacy trial. In addition, we found no evidence that neutralization breath was heritable when analyzing env sequences from the 126 participants. These results demonstrate that the presence of slightly different HIV-1 variants in acute infection could promote the induction of bnAbs, suggesting a novel vaccine strategy, whereby an initial immunization with a cocktail of minimally distant antigens would be able to initiate bnAb development towards breadth. Vaccines against viral pathogens protect through the induction of broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs). No HIV-1 vaccine has successfully elicited bnAbs, and a successful HIV-1 vaccine will need to accelerate the process of development of a broadly neutralizing response that typically takes a couple of years to develop in natural infection. We studied diversity in the HIV-1 envelope gene from initial infection to several years out in 126 individuals from two cohorts. We showed that the development of bnAbs at 2–3 years was not due to transmissible viral genetics, but rather associated with diversity during the first month of infection. We propose that designing a vaccine that mimics an infection with multiple, minimally distant founder variants may successfully elicit the development of bnAbs and provide effective prophylaxis against HIV-1.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eric Lewitus
- U.S. Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States of America
- Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Samantha M. Townsley
- U.S. Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States of America
- Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Yifan Li
- U.S. Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States of America
- Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Gina C. Donofrio
- U.S. Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States of America
- Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Bethany L. Dearlove
- U.S. Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States of America
- Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Hongjun Bai
- U.S. Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States of America
- Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Eric Sanders-Buell
- U.S. Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States of America
- Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Anne Marie O’Sullivan
- U.S. Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States of America
- Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Meera Bose
- U.S. Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States of America
- Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Hannah Kibuuka
- Makerere University Walter Reed Project, Kampala, Uganda
| | - Lucas Maganga
- National Institute for Medical Research-Mbeya Medical Research Center, Mbeya, Tanzania
| | | | - Fredrick K. Sawe
- Kenya Medical Research Institute/U.S. Army Medical Research Directorate-Africa/Kenya-Henry Jackson Foundation MRI, Kericho, Kenya
| | - Leigh Anne Eller
- U.S. Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States of America
- Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Nelson L. Michael
- Center for Infectious Disease Research, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Victoria R. Polonis
- U.S. Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Julie A. Ake
- U.S. Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Sandhya Vasan
- U.S. Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States of America
- Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Merlin L. Robb
- U.S. Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States of America
- Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Sodsai Tovanabutra
- U.S. Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States of America
- Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Shelly J. Krebs
- U.S. Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States of America
- Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Morgane Rolland
- U.S. Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States of America
- Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America
- * E-mail:
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Reeves DB, Rolland M, Dearlove BL, Li Y, Robb ML, Schiffer JT, Gilbert P, Cardozo-Ojeda EF, Mayer BT. Timing HIV infection with a simple and accurate population viral dynamics model. J R Soc Interface 2021; 18:20210314. [PMID: 34186015 PMCID: PMC8241492 DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2021.0314] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/14/2021] [Accepted: 06/03/2021] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Clinical trials for HIV prevention can require knowledge of infection times to subsequently determine protective drug levels. Yet, infection timing is difficult when study visits are sparse. Using population nonlinear mixed-effects (pNLME) statistical inference and viral loads from 46 RV217 study participants, we developed a relatively simple HIV primary infection model that achieved an excellent fit to all data. We also discovered that Aptima assay values from the study strongly correlated with viral loads, enabling imputation of very early viral loads for 28/46 participants. Estimated times between infecting exposures and first positives were generally longer than prior estimates (average of two weeks) and were robust to missing viral upslope data. On simulated data, we found that tighter sampling before diagnosis improved estimation more than tighter sampling after diagnosis. Sampling weekly before and monthly after diagnosis was a pragmatic design for good timing accuracy. Our pNLME timing approach is widely applicable to other infections with existing mathematical models. The present model could be used to simulate future HIV trials and may help estimate protective thresholds from the recently completed antibody-mediated prevention trials.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel B. Reeves
- Vaccine and Infectious Diseases Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Morgane Rolland
- US Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, MD, USA
- Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Bethany L. Dearlove
- US Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, MD, USA
- Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Yifan Li
- US Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, MD, USA
- Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Merlin L. Robb
- US Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, MD, USA
- Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Joshua T. Schiffer
- Vaccine and Infectious Diseases Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA, USA
- Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Peter Gilbert
- Vaccine and Infectious Diseases Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA, USA
- Department of Statistics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - E. Fabian Cardozo-Ojeda
- Vaccine and Infectious Diseases Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Bryan T. Mayer
- Vaccine and Infectious Diseases Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA, USA
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