Overcoming HBV immune tolerance to eliminate HBsAg-positive hepatocytes via pre-administration of GM-CSF as a novel adjuvant for a hepatitis B vaccine in HBV transgenic mice

Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) is known to be a potential vaccine adjuvant despite contradictory results from animal and human studies. The discrepancies may be due to the different doses and regimens of GM-CSF that were used, given that either mature or immature dendritic cells (DCs) could be induced under different conditions. To test the hypothesis that GM-CSF can be used as a novel adjuvant for a hepatitis B virus (HBV) therapeutic vaccine, we administered GM-CSF once per day for three days prior to vaccination with recombinant HBV vaccine (rHBVvac) in mice. We observed greater DC maturation in these pre-treated animals at day 3 as compared to day 1 or day 2 of daily GM-CSF administration. This strategy was further investigated for its ability to break the immune tolerance established in hepatitis B surface antigen-transgenic (HBsAg-Tg) animals. We found that the levels of induced anti-HBsAg antibodies were significantly higher in animals following three days of GM-CSF pre-treatment before rHBV vaccination after the third immunization. In addition to the increase in anti-HBsAg antibody levels, cell-mediated anti-HBsAg responses, including delayed-type hypersensitivity, T-cell proliferation, interferon-c production, and cytotoxic T lymphocytes, were dramatically enhanced in the three-day GM-CSF pre-treated group. After adoptive transfers of CD8(+) T cells from immunized animals, antigen-specific CD8(+) T cells were observed in the livers of recipient HBsAg-Tg animals. Moreover, the three-day pre-treatments with GM-CSF prior to rHBVvac vaccination could significantly eliminate HBsAg-positive hepatocytes, suggesting beneficial therapeutic effects. Therefore, this protocol utilizing GM-CSF as an adjuvant in combination with the rHBVvac vaccine has the potential to become a novel immunotherapy for chronic hepatitis B patients.