Early Transcriptome Signatures from Immunized Mouse Dendritic Cells Predict Late Vaccine-Induced T-Cell Responses

PLoS Comput Biol. 2016 Mar 21;12(3):e1004801. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004801. eCollection 2016 Mar.

Abstract

Systems biology offers promising approaches for identifying response-specific signatures to vaccination and assessing their predictive value. Here, we designed a modelling strategy aiming to predict the quality of late T-cell responses after vaccination from early transcriptome analysis of dendritic cells. Using standardized staining with tetramer, we first quantified antigen-specific T-cell expansion 5 to 10 days after vaccination with one of a set of 41 different vaccine vectors all expressing the same antigen. Hierarchical clustering of the responses defined sets of high and low T cell response inducers. We then compared these responses with the transcriptome of splenic dendritic cells obtained 6 hours after vaccination with the same vectors and produced a random forest model capable of predicting the quality of the later antigen-specific T-cell expansion. The model also successfully predicted vector classification as low or strong T-cell response inducers of a novel set of vaccine vectors, based on the early transcriptome results obtained from spleen dendritic cells, whole spleen and even peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Finally, our model developed with mouse datasets also accurately predicted vaccine efficacy from literature-mined human datasets.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Cells, Cultured
  • Dendritic Cells / drug effects
  • Dendritic Cells / immunology*
  • Female
  • Immunity, Innate / drug effects
  • Immunity, Innate / immunology*
  • Immunization / methods
  • Lymphocyte Activation / drug effects
  • Lymphocyte Activation / immunology*
  • Mice
  • Mice, Inbred C57BL
  • T-Lymphocytes / drug effects
  • T-Lymphocytes / immunology*
  • Transcriptome / drug effects
  • Transcriptome / immunology*
  • Viral Vaccines / administration & dosage
  • Viral Vaccines / immunology*

Substances

  • Viral Vaccines

Grants and funding

This work was sponsored by European Commission (http://ec.europa.eu) under contract No. LSHB-CT-2004-005246 “CompuVac: rational design and standardized evaluation of novel genetic vaccines” and Safer and Faster Evidence-based Translation (T SAFE 115003), and LabEx Transimmunom (ANR-11-IDEX-0004-02, http://www.agence-nationale-recherche.fr). CH, ET and DKa were supported by the CompuVac consortium (www.compuvac.eu). PHP was supported by a doctoral fellowship from the Ministère de la Recherche et de la Technologie (http://www.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.