Differential Adjuvant Activities of TLR7 and TLR9 Agonists Inversely Correlate with Nitric Oxide and PGE(2) Production

Activation of different pattern recognition receptors causes distinct profiles of innate immune responses, which in turn dictate the adaptive immune response. We found that mice had higher CD4(+) T cell expansion to an immunogen, ovalbumin, when coadministered with CpG than with CL097 in vivo. To account for this differential adjuvanticity, we assessed the activities of CpG and CL097 on antigen-specific CD4(+) T cell expansion in vitro using an OT-II CD4(+) T cell/bone marrow-derived dendritic cell (DC) co-culture system. Unexpectedly, ovalbumin-stimulated expansion of OT-II CD4(+) T cells in vitro was potently suppressed by both TLR agonists, with CL097 being stronger than CpG. The suppression was synergistically reversed by co-inhibition of cyclooxygenases 1 and 2, and inducible nitric oxide (NO) synthase. In addition, stimulation of OT-II CD4(+) T cell/DC cultures with CL097 induced higher levels of CD4(+) T cell death than stimulation with CpG, and this CD4(+) T cell turnover was reversed by NO and PGE(2) inhibition. Consistently, the co-cultures stimulated with CL097 produced higher levels of prostaglandin E(2) (PGE(2)) and NO than stimulation with CpG. CL097 induced higher PGE(2) production in DC cultures and higher IFN-γ in the OT-II CD4(+) T cell/DC cultures, accounting for the high levels of PGE(2) and NO. This study demonstrates that the adjuvant activities of immunostimulatory molecules may be determined by differential induction of negative regulators, including NO and PGE(2) suppressing clonal expansion and promoting cell death of CD4(+) T cells.