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Targeting mitochondrial dysfunction can restore antiviral activity of exhausted HBV-specific CD8 T cells in chronic hepatitis B

Abstract

Hepatitis B virus (HBV)-specific CD8 T cells are functionally exhausted in chronic hepatitis B infection, and this condition can be corrected only partially through the modulation of inhibitory pathways, which suggests that a more complex molecular interplay underlies T cell exhaustion. To gain broader insight into this process and identify additional targets for the restoration of T cell function, we compared the transcriptome profiles of HBV-specific CD8 T cells from patients with acute and chronic disease with those of HBV-specific CD8 T cells from patients able to resolve HBV infection spontaneously and influenza (FLU)-specific CD8 T cells from healthy participants. The results indicate that exhausted HBV-specific CD8 T cells are markedly impaired at multiple levels and show substantial downregulation of various cellular processes centered on extensive mitochondrial alterations. A notable improvement of mitochondrial and antiviral CD8 functions was elicited by mitochondrion-targeted antioxidants, which suggests a central role for reactive oxygen species (ROS) in T cell exhaustion. Thus, mitochondria represent promising targets for novel reconstitution therapies to treat chronic hepatitis B infection.

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Figure 1: Gene-expression profiling of HBV-specific CD8 T cells from the acute, chronic and resolution phases of hepatitis B infection.
Figure 2: Comparison of patients with chronic and resolved infections by GSEA.
Figure 3: Mitochondrial dysfunction in patients with chronic HBV infection.
Figure 4: Correction of mitochondrial dysfunction by MT antioxidants.
Figure 5: Functional restoration of exhausted HBV-specific T cells by MT antioxidants.
Figure 6: Specificity of the MT-antioxidant effect on cytokine production.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Murphy (MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit Wellcome Trust, Cambridge, UK) for the gift of a MitoQ sample; S. Bicciato (Department of Life Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy) for introducing us to GSEA; and the Microarray Facility at the University of Ferrara (http://ltta.tecnopoloferrara.it/bioinformatica.php) for help in the initial phase of bioinformatic analysis. We are also grateful to A. Cossarizza (Department of Surgery, Medicine, Dentistry and Morphological Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy) and A. Merli (Department of Life Sciences, University of Parma, Italy) for their helpful discussions. This work was supported by a grant from Regione Emilia-Romagna, Italy (Programma di Ricerca Regione-Università 2010–2012; PRUa1RI-2012-006 to C.F.), by a grant (2012.0033 to C.F.) from Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Parma (Italy), and by a FIRB grant (RBAP10TPXK to C.F.) from the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR to C.F.).

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Contributions

P.F.: study design, design and execution of the experiments; data acquisition, analysis and interpretation; writing of the manuscript; V.B.: execution of experiments; data acquisition, statistical analysis and interpretation, contribution to manuscript drafting; B.M.: microarray data handling, including GSEA and network analysis; G.A.: execution of experiments; M.F.: microarray data analysis; F.G. and D.S.: execution of Nanostring experiments. C.B.: analysis of data from cell-based assays and patients' characterization; M.M., G.G., T.G. and P.L.: recruitment and characterization of patients; M.C.C.: technical support with patients' characterization. G.M. and M.L.: critical revision of the manuscript; S.O.: study design, data mining and interpretation, writing and revising the manuscript; C.F.: study concept and supervision, data analysis and interpretation, writing and revising the manuscript and funding retrieval.

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Correspondence to Carlo Ferrari.

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Competing interests

P.L.: Consultant for BMS, Roche, Gilead Sciences, GSK, MSD

M.L.: Consultant for Gilead, Jansen, BMS, Arbutus, Galapagos, Assembly Pharma, Sanofi/Aventis

C.F.: Consultant for Gilead, Abbvie, Arrowhead

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Supplementary Figures and Table

Supplementary Figures 1–8 & Supplementary Table 4 (PDF 1694 kb)

Supplementary Table 1

SOM clusters derived from ANOVA filtered genes (XLSX 76 kb)

Supplementary Table 2

Functional analysis results related to SOM clusters (XLSX 36 kb)

Supplementary Table 3

List of misregulated genes (XLSX 75 kb)

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Fisicaro, P., Barili, V., Montanini, B. et al. Targeting mitochondrial dysfunction can restore antiviral activity of exhausted HBV-specific CD8 T cells in chronic hepatitis B. Nat Med 23, 327–336 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.4275

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