Tissue T cells in prophylactic and therapeutic vaccination responses

Abstract

In this conference report, I highlight the potential to target tissue-resident T cells to enhance prophylactic and therapeutic vaccine immunity. I describe our recent findings on exploiting frontline sentinal immunosurveillance by liver-resident immunity for functional cure of hepatitis B. We showed that therapeutic vaccine-induced HBV-specific T cells are constrained by liver-resident NK cells; cytokine-activation and PD-L1 blockade of NK cells converted them into helpers able to instead boost HBV-specific T cells. Turning to tissue-resident T cells in the lung, we found this pool can include T cells able to recognise SARS-CoV-2, including cross-reactive responses present prior to the pandemic. The importance of inducing T cells with future prophylactic vaccines was underscored by their selective expansion in a subset of donors aborting SARS-CoV-2 infection without detectable antibodies.