Immune Responses to HBV Vaccine in People Living with HIV (PLWHs) Who Achieved Successful Treatment: A Prospective Cohort Study

Ling Xu; Li Zhang; Shuang Kang; Xiaodi Li; Lianfeng Lu; Xiaosheng Liu; Xiaojing Song; Yanling Li; Xiaoxia Li; Wei Lyu; Wei Cao; Zhengyin Liu; Taisheng Li

doi:10.3390/vaccines11020400

Immune Responses to HBV Vaccine in People Living with HIV (PLWHs) Who Achieved Successful Treatment: A Prospective Cohort Study

Vaccines (Basel). 2023 Feb 9;11(2):400. doi: 10.3390/vaccines11020400.

Authors

Ling Xu^{1

2

3}, Li Zhang¹, Shuang Kang¹, Xiaodi Li^{1

2}, Lianfeng Lu^{1

2}, Xiaosheng Liu^{1

2}, Xiaojing Song^{1

2}, Yanling Li^{1

2}, Xiaoxia Li^{1

2}, Wei Lyu¹, Wei Cao¹, Zhengyin Liu¹, Taisheng Li^{1

2

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Infectious Diseases, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100730, China.
² Center for AIDS Research, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100730, China.
³ Department of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology, Beijing Chao-yang Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100020, China.
⁴ School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.

Abstract

Background: Understanding immune responses after HBV vaccination is important to prevent HBV infection in PLWH and to achieve successful treatment.

Methods: Thirty-two PLWHs with CD4⁺ cell count > 350 cells/µL and HIV RNA < 200 copies/mL were vaccinated with 20 µg of HBV vaccine at weeks 0, 4, and 24 in this prospective study. We measured total HIV DNA levels, HBsAb titers and HBsAg-specific T-cell responses during follow-up time.

Results: All patients achieved protective HBsAb titer after immunization. The magnitude of the IFN-r and TNF-a response to HBsAg was 22.0 (IQR: 6.5-65.0) and 106.50 (IQR: 58.5-203.0) spot-forming cells (SFC)/10⁵ PBMC, respectively at week 0. The level of IFN-r secreted at weeks 12 and weeks 36 to 48 was comparable with that at week 0. However, IFN-r response was higher at weeks 12 than that at weeks 36 to 48 (p = 0.02). The level of TNF-a secreted at weeks 12 was higher than that at week 0 (p < 0.001). Total HIV DNA levels were 2.76 (IQR: 2.47-3.07), 2.77 (IQR: 2.50-3.09), 2.77 (IQR: 2.41-2.89) log₁₀ copies/10⁶ PBMCs at weeks 0, 12, 36 to 48, respectively. No correlation was observed between IFN-r and TNF-a levels and HBsAb titer as well as total HIV DNA levels after immunization.

Conclusion: Humoral immunity was satisfactory, but cellular immunity and decline in HIV reservoir were not optimal after HBV vaccine immunization in these patients.

Keywords: HBV vaccine; IFN-r; PLWH; TNF-a; total HIV DNA levels.

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the National Key Technologies R&D Program for the 13th Five-year Plan (2017ZX10202101-001), the CAMS Initiative for Innovative Medicine (2021-I2M-1-037) and the Beijing key clinical specialty project. The funding bodies played no role in the design of the study, data collection, data analysis, interpretation of data or writing of the manuscript.