Asymmetric Boost Responses to an HIV-1 Vaccine: Boost-site Controls Secondary B-cell Fates

Authors

Barber, J. S., Tonouchi, K., Yeh, C.-H., Berry, M., Kirshner, H. F., Wiehe, K., Eaton, A., Montefiori, D., Tian, M., Alt, F. W., Saunders, K. O., Shaw, G. M., Haynes, B. F., Kelsoe, G. H.

Abstract

Induction of broadly neutralizing antibody (bnAb) responses remains a central challenge to designing efficacious HIV vaccines. Lineage design strategies, in which bnAb precursors are guided via iterative immunizations to their mature forms, depend on high levels of somatic mutation and the recall of antigen-specific B cells. Recent studies have identified spatial context as an important determinant of boosting efficacy, but the application of this to HIV vaccines and the underlying mechanisms are incompletely understood. Here, using mice harboring a V3-glycan bnAb lineage precursor knock-in combined with lineage-tracing and single-cell analyses, we show that persistent germinal centers (GCs) support continued affinity maturation of founder clones and ipsilateral boosting preferentially engages these lineages in secondary GCs. In contrast, contralateral boosting predominantly recruits naive B cells and memory B cells not directed towards the immunizing antigen. The few memory cells recruited at this site were biased towards a plasma cell fate. Finally, we identify disfavored mutational trajectories within the V3-glycan bnAb lineage, revealing intrinsic constraints on bnAb lineage evolution.

Preprint server: bioRxiv
The authors list and abstract were imported from bioRxiv on 18 Aug 2026.

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