Long lived liver-resident memory T cells of biased specificities for abundant sporozoite antigens drive malaria protection by radiation-attenuated sporozoite vaccination

Abstract

Vaccination with radiation-attenuated sporozoites (RAS) can provide highly effective protection against malaria in both humans and mice. To extend understanding of malaria immunity and inform the development of future vaccines, we studied the protective response elicited by this vaccine in C57BL/6 mice. We reveal that successive doses of Plasmodium berghei RAS favour the generation of liver CD8+ tissue-resident memory T cells (TRM cells) over circulating memory cells, and markedly enhance their longevity. Importantly, RAS immunisation strongly skews the composition of the liver CD8+ TRM compartment towards cells specific for abundant sporozoite antigens, such as thrombospondin-related adhesive protein (TRAP) and circumsporozoite protein (CSP), which become major mediators of protection. The increased prevalence of sporozoite specificities is associated with limited intrahepatic parasite development and inhibition of naive T cell responses to all parasite antigens in previously vaccinated mice. This leads to the exclusive expansion of effector T cells formed upon initial immunisation, ultimately reducing the diversity of the liver TRM pool later established. These findings provide novel insights into the mechanisms governing malaria immunity induced by attenuated sporozoite vaccination and highlight the susceptibility of this vaccine to limitations imposed by strain-specific immunity associated with the abundant, yet highly variable sporozoite antigens CSP and TRAP. Author SummaryMalaria remains a significant global health challenge. An efficient vaccine could significantly enhance malaria control. Vaccination with radiation-attenuated sporozoites (RAS) can induce highly efficient protection against malaria, and our study brings critical insights into the protective mechanisms elicited by this vaccine. We show that RAS stimulates the formation of parasite-specific cytotoxic memory T cells that permanently reside in the liver (liver TRM cells). These cells are critical mediators of protection. Interestingly, multiple doses of RAS extend the lifespan of these memory cells, potentially improving long term immunity. However, we found that the induced memory T cell response is strongly skewed towards abundant, but highly variable, sporozoite proteins. Thus, this phenomenon exposes a potential limitation of the RAS vaccine against the great parasite diversity in the field, as it focuses the T cell response away from less abundant, but more conserved, parasite antigens.