Rapid boosting increases germinal center responses to sequential vaccines

How germinal centers deal with changing antigens remains unclear, yet this biology could be central to next-generation vaccine strategies such as germline-targeting. Here we demonstrate, in a mouse model with protein immunogens, that rapid delivery of homologous or heterologous boosts results in highly positive outcomes.

Rapid reimmunization expands on-target GC B cell (BGC) populations, which emerge almost exclusively from existing BGC cells. Early homologous boosting avoids prohibitive antibody titers and utilizes off-target antibodies to maximize the BGC response, with 24-fold increases in on-target VRC01gHL cell numbers. Heterologous rapid boosting shifts affinity maturation towards the new antigen.