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Infection and Immunity, March 2004, p. 1807-1811, Vol. 72, No. 3
0019-9567/04/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/IAI.72.3.1807-1811.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Gillian F. Black,1,2,
Hazel M. Dockrell,1 Sian Floyd,1 Paul E. M. Fine,1,2 Steven D. Chaguluka,2 Sally Stenson,1 Elizabeth King,1 Bernadette Nazareth,3 David K. Warndorff,2 Bagrey Ngwira,2 Amelia C. Crampin,1,2 Lorren Mwaungulu,2 Lifted Sichali,2 Elizabeth Jarman,2 Linda Donovan,2 and Jenefer M. Blackwell4*
Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London,1 Redbridge and Waltham Forest Health Authority, Ilford,3 Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, Cambridge, United Kingdom,4 Karonga Prevention Study, Chilumba, Malawi2
Received 6 August 2003/ Returned for modification 22 September 2003/ Accepted 1 December 2003
| ABSTRACT |
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| INTRODUCTION |
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) responses to environmental mycobacterial antigens in Malawi than in the United Kingdom (5), (ii) greater BCG-attributable increases in IFN-
responses in the United Kingdom than in Malawi (5), and (iii) greater BCG-attributable increases in IFN-
response to M. tuberculosis purified protein derivative (PPD) in Malawians with low initial responsiveness to PPDs of M. avium, M. intracellulare, and M. scrofulaceum (the MAIS complex) than in those with high initial responses (3). The higher prevalence of IFN-
responsiveness to PPDs of the environmental MAIS complex than to PPDs of M. tuberculosis, M. bovis, or the more distantly related fast-growing species M. vaccae and M. fortuitum in Malawi (3) might relate to both relative exposure to these different species and the composition of cross-reacting T-cell peptide epitopes in the preparations. Alternatively, or in addition, they could reflect the ability of PPDs to induce proinflammatory (e.g., tumor necrosis factor alpha [TNF-
] and interleukin-1ß [IL-1ß]) or anti-inflammatory (e.g., IL-10) cytokine responses that regulate the adaptive immune response. To address this, we here examine 24-h TNF-
, IL-1ß, and IL-10 responses in stimulated whole-blood cultures. This reveals differences in the magnitude of responsiveness to different mycobacterial PPDs as well as apparent in vivo priming for higher prevaccination responses in Malawian than in United Kingdom subjects. | Study design. |
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, IL-1ß, and IL-10 ELISAs were carried out using commercially available antibody pairs (PharMingen, San Diego, Calif.; Biosource, Nivelles, Belgium). Recombinant cytokines (2,000 to 31 pg/ml; PharMingen or Biosource) were used for the standard curves; the lower limit of detection for all assays was 31 pg/ml. Plates were read and analyzed using Revelation 3.04 software (Dynex, Chantilly, Va.). Medium-alone negative-control values were subtracted from all results. Control supernatants were exchanged between the Malawi and United Kingdom labs to ensure comparability. Statistical analyses were carried out using STATA 7. Associations between pairs of variables were quantified using the Spearman rank correlation coefficient. Differences between the United Kingdom and Malawi were assessed using the Mann-Whitney test for median responses and the chi-square test for the percentage with a "positive" (i.e., >62-pg/ml) response. Linear regression was used for analysis of the change in TNF-
and IL-10 responses between recruitment and 1 year postvaccination. Values below the limit of detection of the assay were set to 15 pg/ml. A log transformation (base 2) was used for both the prevaccination and the postvaccination response. Analysis was based upon the difference between these two values.
PPDs trigger higher prevaccination TNF- , IL-1ß, and IL-10 responses in Malawi than in the United Kingdom.
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, IL-1ß, and IL-10 responses, and (ii) Malawians make higher pro- and anti-inflammatory responses than do United Kingdom individuals. The latter is not due to differences in culture conditions, since both populations made similar TNF-
, IL-1ß, and IL-10 responses to control LPS stimulation (
90% responders; data not shown). Nor is the responsiveness to the mycobacterial preparations due to LPS contamination, since the level of endotoxin measured in all of the mycobacterial antigens used here was <0.05 endotoxin units/ml (<5 pg/ml). The rank order of potency of the PPD or new tuberculin preparations holds true across both populations for TNF-
and IL-1ß, with the percentage of individuals responding to each of the antigens in Malawi strongly correlated with the percentage of individuals responding to the same antigens in the United Kingdom (TNF-
, r = 0.97, P < 0.001; IL-1ß, r = 0.95, P < 0.001). In Malawi there were significant correlations (r = 0.52 to 0.68, P < 0.001) for individual TNF-
against IL-1ß responses for all seven PPDs and for M. vaccae new tuberculin. TNF-
and IL-1ß responses each also were correlated (r = 0.35 to 0.65, P < 0.001) with IL-10 responses. Among United Kingdom adolescents, for whom all median responses were generally lower (Fig. 1), the only moderately strong correlations were between TNF-
and IL-1ß (r = 0.51, P < 0.001) for responses to M. avium CVL and between TNF-
and IL-10 (r = 0.60, P < 0.001) and IL-1ß and IL-10 (r = 0.57, P < 0.001) for responses to M. vaccae new tuberculin. The prevalence of IL-10 responsiveness to PPDs was extremely low, with the exception of the response to M. vaccae new tuberculin. Interestingly, M. vaccae new tuberculin produced the highest TNF-
, IL-1ß, and IL-10 responses in both populations, and M. tuberculosis PPD produced the lowest responses.
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| LAM content. |
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and IL-1ß. LPS triggers macrophages through the combined action of the adaptor molecule CD14 and the signal-transducing molecule Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) (1, 22). Mycobacteria also possess ligands that trigger both TLR2 and TLR4 (reviewed in reference 21). The mycobacterial ligands for TLR2 include LAM, a biosynthetic precursor of LAM phosphatidylinositolmannan, and the 19-kDa lipoprotein of M. tuberculosis, both of which could copurify with proteins and/or peptides in the PPD preparative process. LAM derived from ubiquitous, fast-growing, nonpathogenic mycobacteria (PILAM or AraLAM) binds CD14 and TLR2 (21) and elicits potent pro- and anti-inflammatory responses. The biochemically distinct (13) LAM from M. tuberculosis and M. bovis (ManLAM) fails to activate TLR2- or TLR4-transfected cells (21) and is a poor inducer of TNF-
, IL-1ß, and IL-10 responses. Using the CS-35 antibody, we found that all of the mycobacterial PPDs contained LAM (Fig. 2) at concentrations (364 to 757 ng/ml) of the order of magnitude (1,000 ng/ml) of purified LAM used previously (16, 17) to induce macrophage pro- and anti-inflammatory responses. However, since the CS-35 antibody binds less avidly to ManLAM than to AraLAM (12) and mycobacteria differ in relative content of ManLAM and AraLAM (13), the absolute amount of LAM measured in the assay will not directly reflect its stimulatory potency. Hence, although there was no direct correlation between the magnitude of cytokine responses elicited by the different PPDs and LAM content as measured in our assay (data not shown), the rank order of potency of the preparations does reflect the relative content of qualitatively different LAMs. LAMs from different strains of M. tuberculosis (Erdman, H37Rv, and H37Ra) and attenuated M. bovis BCG are all mannose capped but vary in the extent of capping between 40 and 70% (13). This is consistent with our observation that PPDs from M. tuberculosis and M. bovis are at the bottom end of the rank order for potency as triggers in our assays (Fig. 1). In contrast, the more distantly related fast-growing M. vaccae is likely, like other fast-growing strains, to have the arabinan domain of LAM uncapped (AraLAM) or be capped with phosphoinositide motifs (PILAM) (13). This is consistent with its position as the most potent trigger for all three cytokines in our assays, despite the lower levels of LAM (217 ng/ml) detected by our assay. Members of the MAIS (M. avium, M. intracellulare, and M. scrofulaceum) complex are intermediate, both in terms of their potency as triggers for pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines in our assays and in having LAMs capped mainly with single mannose residues rather than the di- and trimannopyranoside motifs found in M. tuberculosis and M. bovis-derived ManLAM (14). Overall our data are consistent with the hypothesis that qualitatively different LAMs could be the major contributors to the innate immune responses that we have observed to be elicited by PPDs in whole-blood assays.
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Effect of BCG vaccination on TNF- , IL-1ß, and IL-10 responses.
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responses, there were no significant vaccine-related changes in response to any antigens in Malawi or the United Kingdom (Table 1, ratio of change in vaccinated group to change in placebo group of close to 1). For IL-10 responses, there was a vaccine-related reduction in response to M. bovis and M. avium CVL PPDs (borderline significance; P = 0.058; P = 0.065), M. scrofulaceum PPD (P = 0.015), and M. vaccae new tuberculin (P = 0.02) in Malawi (Table 1, ratio of change in vaccinated group to change in placebo group of <1) but no vaccine-related change in response to any antigens in the United Kingdom. Hence, although we were measuring immediate (24-h) innate anti-inflammatory responses to mycobacterial antigen preparations in vitro, there were changes in responses over the year in Malawi that appear to be attributable to vaccine-induced in vivo effects that reduce IL-10 responses.
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| Conclusions. |
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responses (3, 4, 23), mycobacterial PPDs also elicit potent early-innate TNF-
, IL-1ß, and IL-10 responses in whole-blood assays. While we cannot discount some role for dendritic cells and T cells in production of 24-h inflammatory cytokine responses, it seems likely that monocytes dominate the response. This stimulation of innate responses by mycobacterial PPDs may influence detection of antigen-specific T-cell responses in whole-blood cultures.
An interesting feature of our study was the dramatic difference in pro- and anti-inflammatory responses between Malawi and the United Kingdom. This could reflect a difference in the relative numbers of circulating monocytes and/or expression of higher levels of pattern recognition receptors on circulating monocytes in Malawian than in United Kingdom adolescents. Of particular note was the failure of United Kingdom subjects to make IL-10 in response to PPDs compared to Malawians. In contrast, the apparent priming for immunoregulatory IL-10 responses in Malawians might contribute to smaller BCG vaccine-induced IFN-
responses to M. tuberculosis PPD (3-5). As our data suggest that BCG vaccination reduced the IL-10 response to some PPDs in Malawians, this may be further evidence of a role for in vivo priming and boosting of the innate immune response.
In conclusion, our results demonstrate that mycobacterial PPD preparations do contain molecules that act as ligands to stimulate innate immune responses. Importantly, major differences detected in Malawi compared to the United Kingdom indicate that in vivo priming for innate immune responses occurs and may contribute to the mechanisms that determine differences in levels of protection against M. tuberculosis following BCG vaccination in these two populations.
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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We thank K. Haslov, G. Hewinson, J. Stanford, and the Central Veterinary Laboratory, Weybridge, United Kingdom, for providing the mycobacterial antigen preparations; Evans Medical for donating the M. bovis BCG vaccine and placebo; and P. Brennan for making available the CS-35 monoclonal antibody as part of NIH, NIAID contract NO1 AI-25469 (http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/mip/leprosy/materialsavailable.html). We thank the people of Karonga for participating in these studies and the National Health Sciences Research Committee of Malawi for permission to publish this paper. We thank the staff and students of the United Kingdom schools who participated in the study and the staff of the Redbridge and Waltham Forest Health Authority for their help with the United Kingdom school study.
The work in Malawi was supported by The Wellcome Trust and that in the United Kingdom was supported by the British Leprosy Relief Association (LEPRA).
| FOOTNOTES |
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R.E.W. and G.F.B. contributed equally to this work. ![]()
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