Meningococcal vaccine Bexsero elicits a robust cellular immune response that targets but is not consistently protective against Neisseria gonorrhoeae during murine vaginal infection

Abstract

Retrospective epidemiological studies suggest that the licensed serogroup B meningococcal vaccine 4CMenB (Bexsero) provides some protection against the closely related pathogen Neisseria gonorrhoeae in humans. This result has been replicated in murine models of gonococcal colonization, with a gonococci-reactive humoral response and more rapid clearance of vaginal infection. However, immunization with Bexsero consistently elicits a robust humoral response but does not protect all individuals, so the correlates of protection remain undefined. Herein, we exploit the fact that Bexsero promotes clearance in only a subset of immunized mice to perform a broad analysis of the adaptive response in animals that are or are not protected. We observe that Bexsero vaccination induces high levels of anti-neisserial antibodies in both serum and the vaginal lumen, and a robust cellular response highlighted by an increase in both conventional naive and memory populations as well as unconventional lymphocyte subsets. Multiplex and flow cytometry results show that Bexsero vaccination generates a robust, multi-faceted cytokine response that spans numerous T cell subsets (TH1, TH2, Treg and TH17 responses) and that non-T non-B lymphocytes play an important role in this response, as indicated by an unbiased principal component analysis. Together, this work provides the first comprehensive analysis of the robust humoral and complex cellular response to Bexsero so as to reveal the effector mechanisms that may contribute to immunity against vaginal gonococcal infection.