Targeting 4-1BB (CD137) to enhance CD8 T cell responses with poxviruses and viral antigens

Attenuated vaccinia virus (VACV) vectors are considered prime vaccine candidates for use in immunotherapy of infectious disease. In spite of this, recent data show that the level of attenuation may hamper the efficient generation of protective CD8 T cells. This suggests that additional adjuvant-like activities may need to be combined with attenuated VACV for optimal vaccination. Stimulatory reagents to the TNFR family molecule 4-1BB (CD137) may represent such an adjuvant for vaccination. Previous murine studies have found that 4-1BB can participate in optimal priming of effector and memory CD8 T cells in response to several virus infections, and concordantly direct stimulation of 4-1BB with agonist reagents effectively boosts the CD8 T cell response against those viruses. In contrast, we recently reported that 4-1BB plays no role in the response to a virulent strain of VACV, questioning whether agonists of 4-1BB will be useful adjuvants for vaccination with VACV vectors. Here we show that agonist anti-4-1BB strongly enhanced the primary viral-specific effector CD8 T cell response during infection with live virulent VACV and attenuated VACV, and during immunization with VACV peptides given in IFA. However, accumulation of memory CD8 T cells was enhanced only following infection with virulent VACV or with peptide vaccination, but not with attenuated VACV, correlating in part with more transient expression of 4-1BB on CD8 T cells with attenuated virus. Our data therefore suggest that 4-1BB may be a promising candidate for targeting as an adjuvant for short-term enhancement of CD8 T cell responses with VACV vaccine strategies, but additional receptors may need to be engaged with 4-1BB to allow long-term CD8 T cell immunity with attenuated VACV vectors.