# Effects of Vaccine on Formation and Clearance of the HIV Latent Reservoir

> **NIH NIH P01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES · 2020 · $338,359

## Abstract

The reservoir of latently HIV-1-infected cells that persist during antiretroviral therapy is a critical barrier to
curing an infected person. Strategies to purge this reservoir and prevent or control viral rebound include
approaches to drive these cells into an activated state that causes viral replication, thereby rendering them
susceptible to drugs and immune responses, which act by interrupting replication mechanisms and recognizing
viral proteins respectively. It is likely that driving resting cellular immune responses or creating new ones via
vaccination will be important to clear the resulting productively infected cells before they release enough virions
to reseed the latent reservoir. Vaccines to generate such immunity are a key strategy in this overall “kick and
kill” approach.
In addition to driving anti-HIV-1 immunity, however, vaccines also cause immune activation of helper T
lymphocytes, therefore potentially creating new targets for HIV-1 infection to add to the latent reservoir, and/or
activating already latently-infected cells to become productive for HIV-1 replication. In this project, we
investigate these component mechanisms with the specific aims:
Aim 1: To evaluate the effect of vaccinations on reactivating the HIV-1 latent reservoir in CD4+ T lymphocytes.
This will be explored using non-HIV-1 vaccines in humanized mice to generate pre-existing resting memory
CD4+ T cell responses, followed by HIV-1 infection of the mice and treatment to generate a latent reservoir,
and re-challenge with the same vaccines to drive activation of the resting memory cells.
Aim 2: To evaluate the capacity of vaccinations to generate CD8+ T lymphocyte responses for clearing the
reactivated HIV-1 latent reservoir. This will be explored using a novel protein nanoparticle HIV-1 vaccine that
drives both CD4+ and CD8+ cellular immunity at high levels.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10057935
- **Project number:** 5P01AI131294-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES
- **Principal Investigator:** OTTO O YANG
- **Activity code:** P01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $338,359
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-08-10 → 2022-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10057935

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10057935, Effects of Vaccine on Formation and Clearance of the HIV Latent Reservoir (5P01AI131294-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10057935. Licensed CC0.

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