Vaccine adjuvants alter TCR-based selection thresholds

How T cell receptor (TCR) specificity evolves in vivo after protein vaccination is central to the development of helper T (Th) cell function. Most models of clonal selection in the Th cell compartment favor TCR affinity-based thresholds. Here, we demonstrated that depot-forming vaccine adjuvants did not require Toll-like receptor (TLR) agonists to induce clonal dominance in antigen-specific Th cell responses. However, readily dispersible adjuvants using TLR-9 and TLR-4 agonists skewed TCR repertoire usage by increasing TCR selection thresholds and enhancing antigen-specific clonal expansion. In this manner, vaccine adjuvants control the local accumulation of Th cells expressing TCR with the highest peptide MHC class II binding. Clonal composition was altered by mechanisms that blocked the local propagation of clonotypes independently of antigen dose and not as a consequence of interclonal competition. This capacity of adjuvants to modify antigen-specific Th cell clonal composition has fundamental implications for the design of future protein subunit vaccines.